


Playing His Game

by saltfics



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Everyone needs a hug in this one, Henry Needs A Hug, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Roommates, Superpowers, Villains, if you have superpowers go to therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:54:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26502481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltfics/pseuds/saltfics
Summary: There are four things wrong in Alex's life:- His college roommate Henry whom he hates.- The two superheroes who somehow decided they were all part of one team.- His arch-nemesis, a goody-two-shoes villain that Alex can't actually justify stopping no matter how much he despises him.- ...- How it's been two years since the fire and he's still terrified of being near it.Of fucking course he ended up pyrokinetic, right?[Heroes/Villains AU.]
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Comments: 158
Kudos: 127





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “What? I don’t look the part of the villain?” 
> 
> “No, you’re right, baby, you’re very evil.” 
> 
> \--in violent symphonies, Chapter 2

Of all the changes that have happened to him in the past couple of years, it’s the dreams he has failed to get used to.

Alex dreams of _fire, of lashing walls of flames blocking every exit. thick clouds of smoke swallowing his vision, stuffing his lungs. He falls to his knees but keeps going, rushing on all fours down hallways he can’t see. His palm burns from the heat gathered in the ash-covered tiles._

_He thinks he starts crying, feels his body shake with the telltale thrash of a sob, but his tears dry in his eyes before they can escape. He sobs loudly and he chokes, coughing like gravel is stuck in his throat, tar in his lungs. Alex coughs and gasps, as he sinks to the floor, his trembling hands unable to hold him any longer._

_His vision darkens, and somehow, above the physical pain in his constricting chest, he can feel the despair rooting there when he can’t stay awake any longer._

_He’s going to die there. He really is going to die in this godforsaken building, because of some fucking asshole who didn’t know when to stop._

_But his last thought before his consciousness slips away is not of spite or hatred. It’s fearful and desperate, like a child crying out for someone to care._

It burns _, he thinks as he stops breathing._ It burns.

Alex shoots up in his bed, one hand grasping the front of his chest as he pants. The threadbare band t-shirt he wears to bed is soaked through with sweat, as is all the bed linen. He swears under his breath, waiting for his heart to stop hammering against his chest. Strong and stubborn and so very loud it’s almost mocking him. Like a reminder.

“Are you all right?”

Alex fights back another curse at his roommate’s voice, heavy with sleep. He looks to the side where the large bookcase has been used as an impromptu screen between their beds. Henry has removed his huge copy of Les Mis from the fourth shelf to gain visual on Alex, and while rubbing at his eyes, he’s looking at him through the hole in polite concern.

“Peachy. Go back to sleep,” Alex grumbles, slipping from his bed to change his sleepwear and sheets.

“Do you… want to talk about it?”

“Like I said _every other time_ you’ve asked me, _no_.”

Henry bristles. “I am well aware. However, since it keeps happening, I thought perhaps you might want to reconsider.”

Alex stops on the way to the bathroom, and from this angle he has a clear view of Henry, balanced on his elbows in bed, one hand half-covering his face against the now turned on light in the bathroom. “No, thanks,” Alex says with a tight-lipped smile.

“You’re not the only one who wakes up, you know,” Henry calls but he’s already shutting the door behind him. Fucker.

And okay, it’s not _fair_ that his roommate has to suffer through Alex’s issues, but he’s not about to feel bad for Henry fucking Fox. He can get a pair of earplugs for all he cares. He didn’t want to be here anyway, so he’s very welcome to leave if it bothers him that much.

He turns the water on, the sweat caking his skin getting more unbearable the longer he doesn’t scrub it off. He’s so, so fucking tired once more, another sleepless night of many. Alex slides down the wall of the shower, gathering his knees close to his chest, letting the water wash over him like rain.

It’s been two years since the fire.

He brings his hands in front of himself, knuckles touching. And he watches as he clicks his fingers and flames flicker on the tips, small like candlelight, before they’re killed by the downpour. He repeats the pattern, again and again, until the sight of the fire doesn’t make his gut twist, until he can play his little trick and breathe, knowing it can’t hurt him anymore. It’s a part of him, an odd scar he can’t hide.

It’s been two years since he died.

Morning classes are hell. Between the lack of sleep the night before, the empty can of coffee he found where he should have replaced it two days before but kept getting sidetracked, and the fact that he can’t even loot it from Henry because the bastard only drinks tea at home outside of exam season (really _what_ is the use of him?), he’s been having a really grouchy morning, droopy eyes and headaches included. Maybe he should start watching his caffeine intake, though.

He spends the first few classes of the day scribbling notes with unfounded fury on his notebook in hopes that the aggressiveness of the act will keep him awake despite his sheer exhaustion. He might have dozed off with his chin in his hand at some point during Mr. McCauliffe’s lecture; the man has a tendency to drone on, and some of the less eager to learn students have learned how to take advantage of that to distract him. On a normal day, he probably would have tried to stop them, or join whatever new conversation they began and derail it entirely by accident, but not today.

The problem comes with his last class of the day. Moral Philosophy and Ethics. He decided to take the class on a whim after his extracurriculars took a rather… fiery turn. And usually he likes it but not today. It’s the one class he shares with Henry and after their argument the night before he really doesn’t want to show him how tired he is.

Unfortunately for him, unless he ditches the class altogether he doesn’t have much of a choice. 

He grabs a cup of coffee from the nearest coffee place, which takes ten minutes longer than usual with the endless line of sleep-deprived students ahead of him who have all collectively run out of energy at the same time, and he turns up at the lecture ten minutes late, when most of the seats are already taken, except for ones at the very front or the far back.

What do you do when sitting in the front will make your strictest teacher notice how sleepy you are (not to mention she’ll probably throw away your coffee) but sitting in the back leaves you next to your fucking roommate who was the one person you meant to avoid?

“Mr. Claremont-Diaz, are you planning on taking a seat or should we wait for you to complete your mental math first?”

Red in the face and clenching the strap of his messenger bag too tightly, he makes his way to the back of the room.

Henry eyes him as he takes a seat next to him but his expression is blank, revealing neither amusement nor annoyance. Alex lowkey hates that too. 

Henry is not an uncaring student. Alex has seen him get into heated arguments with the professor and other classmates alike, always full of thoughts and opinions, always passionate about things; it’s one of his nicer qualities. So Alex doesn’t _know_ why he’s always as far back as possible, so high up it’s harder to hear what the professor is saying. He asked him. Once. And the asshole was so cryptic about it, Alex decided never to ponder over it again (he failed, but, well, Henry didn’t know that).

 _‘Sometimes you just want people not to see you_.’

For once though he can agree with the sentiment.

As if the thought summons him, Henry leans over towards him. “Are you all right?” he whispers.

“Are you trying to get me lectured again?” Alex grumbles. Henry stiffens. Okay, maybe that was a bit too snappy. “I’m fine, thanks. Just tired.”

“Look, about yesterday…”

“I _told_ you, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I just think—”

“Nobody _asked_ you what you think. We’ve never been friends, it’s literally none of your business, just shut the fuck up about it.”

The person in front of them turns around to hiss at them to do exactly that, and it disrupts Alex enough for his own words to sink in. Henry is gaping at him, eyes wide with surprise, yet there’s hurt lingering in the furrow of his brows before he schools his expression into a stubborn apathy, his spine stretching into a dignified, uncomfortable posture. He doesn’t respond to him, just turns back to his notes, fascinated by them all of the sudden.

Alex tries to focus on a lecture already lost to him. As he’s not trying to speak to him, Henry technically can’t be giving him the cold shoulder but Alex swears he feels the animosity between them like a physical chill on his side, knotting muscles stiff and irritating the crap out of him.

So what if he wasn’t fair to Henry? Henry never wanted to be saddled with him in the first place. If his roommate’s first words when he sees him in their new shared room are, “Isn’t there anyone else you can put me with?”, then he doesn’t get to try to be friendly afterward. No way.

And yet, when the class is finally dismissed, Alex can’t help but try to say something, just so he doesn’t have to get home to a sour roommate later. The day has been annoying enough.

“Hey—”

“If you’re done being a prick,” Henry interrupts him, shoving books into his backpack with too much fervor, “What I wanted to tell you was that I won’t be home this afternoon, so since you don’t have any classes after this you could go home and get some bloody sleep so you can stop taking out your frustrations on other people.”

“How the fuck do you know when my classes are?” Alex says, ignoring everything else.

“We’ve been living together for six months and your schedule is crookedly taped on our _common_ door, Alex.”

Alex snorts. “Well, if you feel like not coming back at all, please don’t stop yourself on my account.”

Henry’s eyes narrow, his mouth pinched with indignation. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, throwing his backpack over his shoulders. His shoulder bumps against Alex’s on the way out the door.

Alex doesn’t resist the urge to roll his eyes even if Henry is no longer there to see. He ignores the bitter taste in his mouth that he could almost call guilt had his roommate ever earned his friendship or even his consideration. Still, the room’s vacancy is a once in a lifetime opportunity and he’s planning on taking full advantage of it. He texts June and Nora to see if they’re not too busy to come over and he’s halfway home himself when a ping comes from somewhere in his backpack.

Alex stares in confusion at the phone in his hands before he groans and starts fishing through his backpack for the second device.

_you checkin in today?_

_do i have to?_

_see you @ A in an hour k thx <3 _

This is what he gets for playing at being a hero.

Alex grabs a second cup of coffee, showing great restraint in not making it double, and redirects himself towards safehouse A, which was really a thrice locked and boarded up old hardware store just off the city center, that they had thrice broken into, remodeled to be at least livable without choking from the dust, and settled themselves in there. Truly a testament to how well the gig paid, if you ask him.

Two streets away he pulls up his hood and starts taking a series of back-alleys he alternates each day until he reaches the garbage cans next to the back entrance. In case he needs another reminder as to how crappy the job is, the smell from there serves well as his daily notification. Though maybe it’s the collaboration with the other two that’s bothering him the most; Alex has not been historically great at making friends and hiding about a hundred secrets from them, including his real name, did not exactly help them bond.

The one thing they did splurge on was a password-protected lock, and four little digits later, Alex slips in the room, squinting at the cold white light after being in the soft afternoon sun for so long.

Regrettably, he manages to catch the tail-end of their conversation.

“I’m just saying, there’s definitely something there, and if there is, we should absolutely know about it.”

“Did you perhaps consider that that might be because you’re unbearably nosy?”

“Shut up.”

Alex chugs the rest of his coffee and joins them, taking a seat on the faded red couch next to Portal. The girl’s dark hair is braided and twisted into a bun that’s leaning too much on one side, but what steals Alex’s attention is the big bruise she’s sporting on her left cheek.

“What are we talking about?” he asks, looking between the two of them.

Kid has taken the sole armchair across from them, and at the question he cringes like he’s in actual physical pain, his eyes going to the ceiling in derision.

Portal grins, her smile sheepish enough to _almost_ warn Alex of what’s coming.

“The possibility that you and Mirage are screwing.”

“ _Excuse_ me?”

“I told her to drop it,” Kid sighs, resting his head on the hand he has balanced on the arm rest.

“I’m just saying,” she shrugs, “if that’s something that’s happening, you should let us know so we don’t accidentally kill him one day.”

Alex glares at her. “Mirage and I are not _screwing_ . We’re nothing but enemies, but you won’t _kill_ him, because I thought we’ve clarified that he’s _my_ enemy.”

Portal turns to Kid with a long-suffering look. “He says shit like that and then I’m the ridiculous one.”

“Honestly, S, I truly do not see why the rest of us cannot take a shot at Mirage, though,” Kid says instead, an eyebrow raised his way, too much intent in his gaze. 

Alex tenses.

“I bet you’d like to take a shot at Mirage,” Portal huffs.

“He’s not my type, darling.”

“How do you know? You can’t _see_ him.”

Alex gives up and plays along if only to redirect Kid from his very real desire to take on Mirage by himself. “You’re just mad because he got you stuck with the name Kid.”

Kid’s official name to the public is actually Pulse, especially because the media eats up the duo of Portal and Pulse, even if their powers are pretty much non-complimentary. They usually don’t even work together, though Portal tolerates him much more than Alex. The second time Mirage ran into him, however, he called him a rich kid. Kid was affronted but for some reason Portal stuck with it too, amused and perhaps a little vindictive in their early days. No one was entirely certain where the comment came from, and though Kid clearly looked and acted and dressed like a pompous ass, the two minute conversation the two of them shared could not have told Mirage that much. Whatever the reason, the nickname ended up sticking in their little unconventional group, which pisses Kid off to no end, because he’s clearly the oldest among them. Honestly, he should be glad the media didn’t adopt it along with them.

The question of whether Mirage knows him still bothers Alex sometimes. Especially since they both share an accent. Or rather, especially since Kid is enough of a prick to make him wonder if he should be on the ‘good guy’ side to begin with.

“You’re one to talk, _Spitfire._ ”

The one thing he’d never forgive of this city (or his sister, for that matter) was letting the fucking villain name him.

Portal frowns, turning back towards him. “Your personal vendetta against Mirage isn’t because he gave you a nickname, is it?”

“It’s _insulting_ but no. Look, just trust me on this, okay? I got him. It’s important to me.”

She sinks back in her seat, doing a small half-shrug with one shoulder. Kid narrows his eyes but says nothing. Alex studies him back. They didn’t reveal their faces at first. It was only after Portal got hurt and they had to peel her mask off during treatment that Alex convinced him to do the same in solidarity. Their names remain a mystery, but Alex can see him now, brown hair and gleaming hazel eyes always taking everything in a little too sharply. A mischievous smile that doesn’t seem fitting on a self-proclaimed hero, yet charms a strange sense of trust.

He’s handsome enough for Alex to notice. But he often wishes he never saw his face, for he trusts him less instead of more for it.

Then again, considering his history with Mirage perhaps he’s not the best judge of character.

Before he can question whether to poke him for an explanation in his insistence, Alex’s ‘work’ phone pings with a message.

_break in @ Food Factory_

_like the actual factory or the hypermarket?_

_the store Alex_

_is it him?_

_security camera didn’t pick up anything so probably_

_be CAREFUL do not blow anything up_

Alex rolls his eyes and pockets his phone. “Sorry, y’all. I gotta go.”

Portal sits up straighter in her spot. “Should we come with you?”

He’s already halfway out the door when he calls back that this one’s his but unfortunately that’s still not far enough to spare himself from her scoff or her farewell.

 _“_ Say hi to Mi for us!”

It took him hours of studying comic books, annoying about half a dozen different physicists, mathematicians, Nora, and about twenty burned clothes and assorted nearby items, but at some point a year after he got his powers, he actually figured out how to use it to fly.

Landing was a whole other issue.

Alex miscalculates, slips and rolls an indeterminate amount of additional feet _right_ on the side of a trash can. “Motherf _ucker,_ ” he says under his breath, glaring at the air in front of him when he hears Nora chuckling in his earpiece. “I’m glad I’m entertaining.”

“ _Don’t be such a grouch. You could have slammed on a wall instead.”_

“ _What Nora_ means _to say,”_ June interjects, _“Is be careful, you idiot.”_

“I _am_ ,” he lies. “You wanna tell me how to get inside?”

Nora, his resident genius, manages to find the schematics of the building to avoid triggering more alarms, which is not as useful as figuring out which door Mirage left open for him because the arrogant bastard always seems to expect his company. He doesn’t even discourage it.

Finding him inside is harder. With the lights left on in various rooms, and no heat-sensitive cameras for them to tap into, finding a man he can’t see is impossible unless he moves.

“Did you get in all right?”

Or unless he talks to him.

Alex looks around him, narrowing his eyes at the emptied shelves. He’s not surprised that the long-lasting products were moved first. What he’s never managed to understand is how the hell he manages to get everything out.

But here’s the thing about his invisible arch-nemesis: Alex never catches him. Not because he can’t (no matter what Nora says), but because he knows everything that gets stolen today will be (unofficially) found in various places of need the next morning.

That charitable asshole.

“Too easy, man. You’re getting rusty.”

Mirage laughs, his low chuckle making his stomach start doing backflips. “Maybe I just like seeing you.”

Alex keeps taking small steps in place, turning around, trying to pinpoint the source of the voice. Just because he won’t put him in jail doesn’t mean he won’t give it a fair shot. Besides, he’s proven he can handle him.

“Really? Well, why don’t you help me say the same and show me your face for once?”

“Nice try.”

Alex shrugs. “Worth a shot.”

 _“I’m checking the cameras, I’ll tell you when I spot him,”_ June whispers in his earpiece. He doesn’t acknowledge her visibly but she knows he heard her, for he starts rubbing the tips of his fingers together, sparks ready to blossom into fire.

He hears Mirage sigh. “Are we going to do this again?”

“Did you _actually_ think this was a social visit?” Alex snaps. Every time he thinks he knows where he is, the voice comes from a different place.

“Very well.”

 _“Behind you!_ ”

Alex doesn’t think. June’s voice is trust and his instincts take over. His hands are already thrust out before he’s fully turned, the fire shooting from his fingertips with calculated abandon. He hears a grunt and for the length of a breath he _sees_ him, a figure clad in black from head to toe, gone before he can reveal anything.

Well. Almost.

He revealed his location.

Alex sends another round of fire to circle the last place he caught him in, trapping him in a flaming ring. Or so he thought.

“Valiant effort.”

Alex’s head snaps to the side, where Mirage is leaning against the nearest shelf, void of his power yet just as unreachable. Where Alex’s suit is a mix of dark wine red and charcoal black, with golden detailings because Nora had to be extra about it and he didn’t feel obligated to stop her, Mirage is a figure clad in spilled ink, a shadow in the corner of his vision. Full-body dark suit, the neckline reaching up like a mask to cover all the way up his nose, and an oversized, ominous hood to cast his eyes in darkness as inscrutable as the rest of him. Alex always falters at the sight of him in person, at the little he can see. Mirage is a ghost, an illusion. He’s a nightmare, but if he hadn’t ruined Alex’s life, he knows he would have longed to lose himself in it. He did once.

“You’re starting to look a little hot under the collar.”

Alex glares at him. He’s not wrong. Two years later and Alex still can’t get used to the heat around him, the air that fills with smoke, even though it can’t hurt him anymore. 

The way a treacherous part of him wonders if he might one day do to someone what happened to him, if the smoke will steal the air out of Mirage’s lungs, if he’ll choke and suffer and burn—

“Shut the fuck up!” he yells. At Mirage. At himself. 

He gathers a new flame in his palm but as he shifts his gaze between the weapon in his hand and the man, tense but still visible in front of him, Alex falters at the trust that he won’t hurt him.

 _“Alex, what are you doing?”_ June asks.

He feels the tendrils of last night’s dream creep to the forefront of his mind, scratching at the edges of his conscience. He half-groans, half-growls and for some reason it’s that sound that finally makes Mirage blend back into nothing.

“Get some rest, Spitfire. You look ill.”

“Get the fuck out and I won’t kill you,” he half-heartedly warns. Mirage, to his defense, humors him.

“Okay.”

June and Nora are quiet on the other end of the line; he can feel their silence judging him. He’s not sure how he figures Mirage has left, but he begins to rein in the fire then, gathering it all into a small flame, fragile like candlelight. With tender movements, like the barest act of rebellion against this fear of his own power, he takes it in his hands and blows it away.

 _“No finger-guns tonight?”_ Nora teases without much bite.

“I thought you hated that.”

_“It was on brand.”_

_“Alex…”_ June starts but he shakes his head.

“Look, I’m sorry, I—You know I wasn’t going to—”

Alex never catches Mirage. But he’s not afraid to fight him either. This felt less than letting him go and more like a defeat, and with his fear still rooted in his gut… “Fuck, I feel useless.”

_“Hey, it’s not like you were planning on killing him and failed. Take a breather. The end result is the same and the only one who knows is Mirage.”_

“Great,” he deadpans. “What about the security cameras?”

_“We’ll take care of that. Go home.”_

So he does. And he cannot believe he spent the one day Henry was out of the house chasing down a villain he never planned on catching in the first place.

As promised, his roommate is not home when he gets there. 

Exhausted as he is, both emotionally and mentally, Alex can’t do anything with that fact but take an extra long shower and maybe try to get that much needed rest.

By the time Henry comes back that night, Alex is already half-asleep. In the morning he’ll have forgotten but for a moment he thinks that Henry smells vaguely of smoke.


	2. Chapter 2

Alex wakes up to the sound of a news reporter saying his name.

Experience has taught him by now that unless he saved a toddler or a kitten or a particularly pleased rich guy the night before, it’s not going to be a fun wake up call. If he argued with Mirage instead? Even worse.

He looks up to find Henry watching a broadcast on his phone, an intense look on his face, arched by furrowed brows. Apparently using headphones to blast his annoying newscasts would be too considerate towards his roommate.

_ “…the signs of fire and eyewitness reports suggest that the superhero known as Spitfire met with the invisible villain inside the store, but the stolen wares were not returned, nor any arrests were made. People are questioning the competency of the self-proclaimed…” _

Alex groans, burying his head face-first back into the pillow. The slight judgmental edge in the journalist’s voice grates against his ears.

“You’d think they would question the competency of the police instead,” Henry scoffs, shutting down the app and finally silencing the reporter. “But no, let’s blame the volunteer vigilante.”

The sudden comment surprises Alex enough to detach him from his pillow, all the way to sitting up on his bed. “Is that what you really think?” he asks.

Henry shoots him a look. “No, I just said it to pass the time.”

“Dickhead.”

“Get dressed, you’re going to be late again.”

They share their first class that day, though when Henry attempts to wait for him to leave together, Alex’s glare is sharp enough to send him out of the door within seconds. At least today he manages to arrive in class before the professor. He sits as far away from Henry as he can this time which is a mistake in itself. Knowing he’s behind him, watching his back when Alex can’t see him gives him the inexplicable urge to keep glancing back at him. 

Henry isn’t even looking his way,

“Morning, class. Take your seats.” As the professor walks inside, she takes a good look around their faces. Alex can feel her sighing even when she doesn’t make a sound. “Okay,” she tries, shaking her head like she’s prepping herself up for something. “I couldn’t help but overhear a few of your conversations in the halls. Let’s do this a little differently today. How many of you saw the news segment this morning?”

A brown-haired girl with a very noticeable glitter stain on her right cheek speaks up from Alex’s side “About the superheroes?” He wants to ask. But also, he really doesn’t.

“ _ Superheroes _ ,” snorts a guy two rows above.

The girl scowls at him. “They have superpowers and they prevent crime, so superheroes.”

“First of all, Mirage  _ commits _ the crime, and Spitfire barely stops him, like,  _ ever,  _ so I don’t know how much of a  _ hero _ there is in your super.”

Alex’s heartbeat picks up, the indignation flaring in his chest. He breathes through the annoyance, his fingers curling around the edge of the desk. Considering it’s  _ his _ hero persona they’re talking about, it’s hard not to take it personally, and no matter how many assholes he’s going to run into in his professional career, somehow What’s-His-Face from Ethics class doesn’t seem like an asshole he’s inclined to deal with right now.

Spitfire has always been a sore subject. Alex must be the only person in town who never talks about the supers messing around the town. Well, apart from when he’s talking  _ to _ the supers messing around the town. But he’s too close to the subject and it’s hard to keep himself grounded when they’re talking about him but he can’t truly defend himself without revealing too much. So he’s forced to either smile or go too far. To either stew in his own anger or leave.

Most of the self-righteous pride and excitement he held when he started doing this has been pushed and pulled and twisted around over itself so many times it’s unrecognizable from what it was once. What has remained is instead an unshakeable sense of obligation, because never starting is one thing, but quitting midway is another.

Even the spite that originally led him to go after Mirage has morphed in a frustrating amalgamation of both resentment and sympathy, and the fact that it’s the point most people use to keep squashing the pride in his work is not helping a sentiment settle.

“So he didn’t stop Mirage. That doesn’t mean he's not stopping other criminals.” Way to go Glitterstain. Whose name Alex should know by now.

“Okay, but why? Why wouldn’t he stop Mirage? If he’s such a great hero?”

Another girl a row down turns to look at them, her glasses slipping down her nose from the speed with which she snaps her head around. “Because Mirage isn’t actually  _ hurting _ anyone? He helps people.” 

“He’s still a criminal.”

“Less yelling, more actual arguing. Come on, you can do better than this. Well-rounded arguments, come on. Any takers?” The professor scans the crowd and smiles. “Yes? Mr. Fox?”

Henry has a hand raised, his mouth pinched in an expression of extreme indifference that would normally annoy the hell out of Alex, if he wasn’t so confused by it. Henry is always at his most expressive when arguing. The professor gestures at him to stand up, and he pushes himself to his feet, too slow in his movements, his gaze going around the room once before he starts. It’s that exact apathy that sends the class yelling at his next words.

“I think you’re all wrong.”

Alex can’t stop the grin when the class erupts in protests. The offense on the douchebag’s face is perfection.

Henry raises his hands in defense, while the subdued annoyance in his expression shifts when his mouth turns in a smirk. “But you are. You are arbitrarily assigning moralities, based on what is legal and what is not, while completely ignoring the fact that if you are going to set such a strong set of rules to right and wrong, then Spitfire and Mirage are, for all intents and purposes, both criminals.”

Alex snaps before he can stop himself. _ “Excuse me _ ?”

Henry smiles at him. “Ms. Allen, for example,” he says, nodding towards the glasses girl, “was in defense of Mirage, because he doesn’t hurt people. But Mr. McHale suggested he is, in fact, still a criminal, while Spitfire’s only transgression according to most of the arguments spoken this far is that he lets him go. Correct?” How does Henry know names? “Mr. McHale if you’re so concerned about the strictest upholding of the law, then shouldn’t you agree that vigilantism is also illegal?”

“That’s not the same,” Alex interjects, pushing himself to his feet too. “Yes, vigilantism is illegal, but Spitfire has never  _ caused _ any crime.”

_ “Property damage, _ ” Glitterstain pretends to cough.

“I thought you were on my side!”

She shrugs. “You’re still  _ wrong _ .”

“So your argument, Mr. Claremont-Diaz, is that because Spitfire helps people he’s held to a higher standard? So why doesn’t he catch him?”

He’s cornering him, he knows. He can either say he doesn’t know, undermining both himself and his defense of Spitfire, or he’s forced to actually defend the same fucking vigilante that he’s been chasing for so long. But… he  _ can _ defend Mirage. Because he’s the one person who knows exactly why Spitfire never catches him. “…Because Mirage is also helping people.”

McHale scoffs. “He’s  _ stealing _ . So, I’d say he’s hurting people.”

“Hurting who?” Glitterstain rolls her eyes. “Big corporations who can afford it?”

“It’s never been proven that he’s actually donating it.”

Glasses—wait, no, Allen interjects again. “Yeah, it’s all just a big coincidence. Get out of here, Brighton.”

Henry’s smirk is so sharp Alex could cut himself on it. “So, is it okay to commit a crime if it doesn’t hurt people? Mirage steals from those who won’t miss it but it’s still stealing, even if they give whatever they take to people who need it. Spitfire is helping people, technically, but he’s still illegal and he can potentially cause problems such as, as Ms. Cauliffe so eloquently provided, property damage or obstruction of justice. But… Mirage’s crime is technically higher, so to say. And Spitfire, the self-appointed hero, is opposing him. Right?” This is the second time he has heard the phrase self-appointed hero that day and while it’s not wrong, he still fucking hates it. “It points to the difference between reality and fiction, I think. It’s… it’s quite intriguing. See, sometimes we merge it—all the superhero vigilantes, so romanticized in comic books are perceived as heroes. So since Spitfire is following the same motif, then we shall perceive him as such as well.” 

Alex sighs through his nose, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Of course Henry has a goddamned TED talk prepared for his arguments. How did Alex never notice the guy was this much into superhero politics?

Henry keeps going straight for that A in Ethics. “We all root for Robin Hood because he’s helping people; isn’t it odd we cannot do the same thing in this case? Of course, of course, reality tends to be more complicated than a story. But consider this: the reason we have condemned those acts is because there’s a nicer standard to compare him to, and when  _ that _ standard opposes him, he casts one of them as the villain and one as the hero.”

Alex pauses. Henry’s gaze has shifted to him, his brows slightly raised, not enough to be questioning but rather like he’s not sure he  _ should _ ask.

The same words from that morning come back to him, but it’s not just curiosity that urges them out this time. “Is that what you really think?” There’s an itch under his skin, making him squirm. His stomach feels heavy.

Henry sobers up, crossing his hands in front of himself. “Well. Mostly. I find it more interesting as a thought experiment than anything else.”

“Henry?” Glitterstain— _ Cauliffe _ asks, frowning. “So do you think they’re both villains or both heroes?”

At first, Henry’s eyes stay on his as he speaks. “I think they’re both people who are trying to do what they think is best out of a bad situation.” His gaze slips to Cauliffe. “And the term anti-hero was coined for a reason.”

She smiles at him, a shrug of a smile, the barest tug of the corner of her lips.

Their professor lets a few more students attempt to argue with Henry, then each other for a while, and McHale certainly takes a shot at it, but eventually she shuts it down, moving on to the actual class curriculum. Throughout the lecture, Alex can’t stop turning around to sneak looks back at Henry, his words still ringing in his ears.  _ I think they’re both people who are trying to do what they think is best out of a bad situation. _

The truth of the statement burrows deep within his stomach. And he hates it the most, that someone like Henry, of all people, could see him like this.

When the class comes to an end, Alex, despite his better judgment, takes the stairs two at a time to stop Henry on his way out of the classroom. Of course, only when he gets up there and Henry raises a brow at him, does he realize that they were heading to the same place anyway.

“Hey.”

“Hello. Can I help you?” Henry takes a step towards him, fidgeting with the strap of his bag.

Alex shifts his weight from one foot to another. “Um, I was just. Curious about what you were talking about today. That’s a weird way to look at it.”

“Is it?” Henry huffs but he’s smiling. “What do you think then?”

“What do I…”

“Yes. Do you think Spitfire should stop him once and for all?”

No. “Maybe?” he says instead, unwilling to admit even after a year of protecting Mirage, that he’s actually doing it.

But Henry’s eyes widen, then narrow, his lips pressing together. Alex is not sure what happened, just that Henry’s smile is long gone and his expression closes off from him, locked up tight. “I see.”

“Henry? Look, I just—” The ping of a cellphone halts him mid-sentence. Henry holds up a hand as he pulls his out of his back pocket and checks it. The hold he has on his strap tightens, knuckles whitening, and he tenses, his entire body turning rigid. “Something wrong?”

Henry swallows. “Do you—Do you need something? I have to leave.”

“Oh. Are you… going home, or?”

Henry runs a hand through his hair, the stress taking away the little color there is on his face on a good day. “I wish.”

“Oh, okay. Go on, then.”

“I’ll see you at home. Bye, Alex.”

For a moment he’s struck with how domestic that sounds, and then Henry’s gone.

The one time he wants to talk to his roommate and he ends up going home to an empty apartment. It’s too bad he’s too grateful for the moment of peace and quiet to dwell on the feeling. He catches up on some assignments, cherishing the ability to have the music on as he studies and giving his head a break from the earphones. Wow, his standards have tanked in these dorms.

He’s midway through belting the last chorus of a Bleachers song and maybe accidentally inserting a few of the lyrics in his essay, when his phone buzzes. His work phone. 

Portal texting him never preludes anything good. If Mirage fucks up his night, he might kill him this time. See his classmates argue their way out of that.

_ are you with Kid rn? _

_ please tell me youre WITH kid rn _

_ no?? _

_ do i want to know _

_ is he in trouble _

_ yes. from you. _

_ dude I think he got to mirage _

__

Blood rushes to his head so fast he has to grab the desk for support. He takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes as if that would somehow make the words on his screen into something less terrifying.

He’s not sure what he’s so afraid of. He shouldn’t  _ want _ to keep Mirage safe. And if Kid goes behind his back then it’s not  _ Alex’s  _ fault he broke the deal. Mirage  _ is _ a villain, no matter what Henry says. Because what Henry doesn’t know is that even if Mirage is Robin Hood-ing his way through his criminal career, he still ruined Alex’s life. And that’s about as good a hero-villain origin story as they can get.

But it’s  _ their _ fight, their rivalry to have.

And Kid—no,  _ Pulse’s  _ powers are fucking terrifying.

_ got to him how?? _

_ in what sense? _

_ what the FUCK is going on _

_ Idk I just saw tweets about someone seeing them fighting _

_ i was HOPING he was with you _

_ you have no idea either? _

_ im going to fucking murder him _

_ that’s valid. _

__

Alex runs a hand through his hair, feeling the pressure building in his chest, for the bastard that went behind his back, for the stupid villain he couldn’t help but worry about. If anyone was going to kick Mirage’s ass, it should have been him.

_ p can you check? _

_ please _

_ can you go check _

_ dude _

_ nvm i’ll go _

_ ugh fine _

_ fine fine Im going _

It’s fifteen minutes of pacing, foot-bouncing, tapping. He regrets telling her to go instead of checking the scene out himself, but he figured she would be able to get there so much faster than him. Still, it means he has to wait, while slowly turning into a big ball of nervous energy and caffeine. Not a novel state by any measure, but it would be nice not to be rendered so twisted over freaking Kid and Mirage.

He almost drops his phone when it buzzes again.

_ Kid is annoyed and mi is gone _

_ but everyone’s alive _

_ tell him we’re meeting tomorrow and im going to kick his ass _

_ he figured  _ ¯\\_( ツ )_/¯

_ thanks for checking p _

_ here for you dude <3 _

Alex frowns at the screen before tossing the phone on the bed with a quiet  _ thump _ . He wishes he could believe that. He wants to. So much. But then Kid pulls stunts like this. He doesn’t know how much they do or they should trust each other, or how long they would hesitate before throwing each other under the bus.

No wonder they didn’t give their real names.

Returning to his schoolwork is impossible, his focus shot to hell with the frustration and anxiety still overfiring every nerve he has. After half an hour of trying and failing, he gives up and decides to use the rest of his roommate-free time to take a shower, now that he won’t have to watch out for hot water, or too much steam, or too much time.

It’s not exactly the miracle cure for relaxation he hoped it would be, but it does take away some of the tension from his shoulders. It’s a shame, then, how it goes out the window the moment he hears Henry walk inside the room. Or rather, he hears Henry’s conversation as he walks inside the room.

‘Careful,” a voice says, definitely not Henry, though he thinks it might be his friend. He’s been around a couple of times, though Henry usually meets him outside the dorm. “Is Alex not home, you think?”

Henry groans. “I hope not.”

Well, okay then.

Alex slams the door open, the glare already set on his face as he walks out to confront him. Figures this would happen again, on the one day he thought he should start being fucking civil to him. “I’d say I hate to disappoint but I actually  _ don’t _ , so,” he says, still halfway out the door.

He walks over to Henry’s part of the room where the rest of his rant gets stuck in his throat. “What happened to  _ you _ ?”

Henry is sitting on his bed, leaning his head against the wall. There’s a large scrape on his left cheek and his lip is split, while his right hand is putting pressure on his left side. Pez is indeed nearby, and he has retrieved their first-aid kit. He gives Alex a smile as he dips a cotton ball in iodine.

“You should see the other guy,” Henry mutters in such a monotone voice, Alex is not sure he heard him right.

“And by other guy he means the asphalt,” Pez says, tapping Henry on the cheek with the cotton. “Oh, shush,” he adds when Henry hisses. “This is your own fault.”

“You were in an accident?” Alex asks, bouncing on his feet, like it would shake off the funny feeling in his stomach.

Henry shifts his gaze over to him, careful not to move his head from where Pez is still holding him. “Remember how I ran somewhere after class this morning?”

“Yeah?”

“I ran too fast.” He pushes Pez’s hand away. “I’m fine,  _ thank _ you.”

“Hey now, don’t get mad at me because you got ruffled up, babe.”

Alex’s work phone starts buzzing from the bed. His head is spinning; all the stress from the Mirage situation he pushed down has resurfaced, then doubled. “Why is everyone getting injured today?” he grumbles. If he could stop worrying over people he doesn’t even like, that would be great.

Henry gives him an odd look. “What does that mean?”

Alex waves him off and heads for the phone instead. If Portal is texting him again, it’d better be to tell him Kid got his ass kicked.

_ okay i didn’t want to tell you this _

_ but I still lowkey think you and mirage are screwing _

_ so I’m going to tell you this _

_ i think i wanna kick your ass tomorrow too _

_ you can do so much worse than mirage _

_ he sounds like a radio host _

_ the erotic kind _

_ stop _

_ fine _

_ why did you text me?? _

_ okay so before when i went to find Kid _

_ i found the scene of the fight _

_ and there was uh blood? Quite a bit _

_ Kid was a little hurt but… idk _

_ I thought you might like to know _

_ s?? you there? _

_ should I not have said anything? _

_ cant really do anything about it _

_ but thanks _

__

Alex rubs at his eyes. This is what happens when he starts his day without coffee. He looks at his phone, to the door, then down at his phone again, wondering if he’s stupid enough to double check what Portal said. And confirm her suspicions that he wanted to know that while at it.

He looks back to the bookcase, the one piece of furniture that blocks his view of Henry.

Maybe he should check up on the injured person he knows how to find instead.

Henry, exhibiting the same consideration for his health over homework as Alex tends to, is sitting with a laptop propped on his crossed legs. His expression is pinched with discomfort, but he ignores it to keep typing away on his keyboard.

“Did your friend leave?”

Henry frowns at him. “Yes? What were you texting about that had you so distracted?”

Alex forces a huff of a laugh. “You okay? You should take the night off.”

To his surprise, Henry actually lowers his computer screen a bit, turning to him with genuine curiosity in his eyes. “And do what?” Before Alex can reply, Henry’s expression breaks a little, and with a quieter voice he adds, “Hey, what you heard… I just didn’t want to explain myself to you. Because it was embarrassing. That’s all.”

Alex thought he knew three things.

  1. His roommate is insufferable
  2. Mirage is a villain and he deserves what he gets.
  3. He hates them both.



And this bizarre, impossible day managed to add a footnote to each of these statements.

1* Henry spoke about him that morning like he  _ saw  _ him.

2* Mirage  _ is  _ actually helping people, and no matter what he did to Alex, he’s not the worst person in the world.

3* He has spent the day worried about both because he’s a fucking idiot.

So Alex, who has already been having a day turned over backwards…

Alex compromises.

“You could watch a movie with me.”

Henry freezes. “With you? Why?”

“Because you pay for Netflix.” Alex rolls his eyes. “Come on, it’ll be fine, we barely have to talk.”

“Alex, I’ve seen you watch movies. You  _ always  _ talk.”

“Okay, so  _ you _ don’t have to talk. Even better.” He makes a grab for Henry’s laptop and despite everything, Henry minimizes his tabs and hands it over. “Scooch,” he smiles then cringes as he watches Henry try to move, wincing all the while. “How did you manage to get hurt again?”

Henry’s eyes settle on him, the blue darkened and heavy with something Alex doesn’t know him well enough to catch. “Overestimated my chances of getting where I needed to go unscathed.”

“What?”

“I crossed the road like a prat.”

“That checks out. So what do you want to watch?”

They settle for  _ Star Wars _ , the quickest decision they can make to avoid browsing the main page for an hour and then being too listless to watch a whole movie. He didn’t realize Henry had noticed the poster on his wall. Or that he cared about it. At some point Alex gets up to make popcorn, and when they end up putting a second movie after the first one, he gets up again to bring Henry some tea (just this  _ once _ because he’s injured and because of that alone).

It’s not that bad.

Henry ends up talking too. He has some strong opinions, most of them wrong but it’s fun to argue with him about it. He regrets not properly debating with him that morning.

Around the end of the second film, something bumps on Alex’s shoulder. “What— _ oh _ .” He scoffs at the sight of Henry leaning on him, his breathing evened out with sleep. “Idiot.”

Careful not to wake him, he takes the time to reposition him to lie on the bed properly, throw a blanket over him. He should go to bed too. He should go to bed and leave this disastrous day in the past.

So of course, that’s not what he does.

With Henry too asleep to hear him, Alex picks his phone from where he dumped it on the bed, breathing a sigh of relief at the lack of new texts from his ‘teammates’, and dials.

“Hey. Something happened, and I need to find Mirage.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amount of dumbassery that goes down in this fic, I swear...
> 
> I thought I'd give this story a second shot, though I still haven't decided whether to keep with it or not. I suppose with apoc ending I do have a spot for an obscure AU like 5 people read. But also uni and nanowrimo around the corner and a whumptober I still havent decided whether I want to participate in or not (meanwhile it's tomorrow e_e). Ugh. 
> 
> Anyhoo, do say hello before you go and as always, you can find me on tumblr @ saltfics!


	3. Chapter 3

Alex doesn’t know exactly where to find Mirage. If he knew, his job would have been a whole lot easier—provided he ever decided to do it. But he did have a suspicion. He had run into him once on a random street after one of their fights. Then again in the same neighborhood. And on a night too horrible, plagued by nightmares of fire and death, too drunk for any self-preservation or logic, he had gone there and started yelling, hoping he’ll be close enough to hear him cuss him out.

And Mirage did. In fact, he came out to meet him.

So that was embarrassing.

But it told him that maybe, _maybe_ if he goes there again, he can find him.

His suit is shoved in his backpack, a problem he’ll have to deal with later but with Henry at home, even if sound asleep, he didn’t want to change. With his unreasonable and far too optimistic aim to be discreet, flying there is out of the question, so he takes the subway, trying to act like doesn’t have a superhero suit in his backpack, or that he’s about to meet a supervillain to check he’s still alive.

He gets off the subway a stop before the one he’s supposed to, and gets dressed in a backwards alley so filthy he envies Mirage for his stupid invisibility. When he told June and Nora that he wanted to find Mirage, they may have laughed a little on his insistence to check on the wellbeing of the person that’s _supposed_ to be his arch-nemesis but in the end, and with way more smugness that was warranted, Nora helped him pinpoint the general location he should be looking in. Still, wandering around in a neighborhood, no matter how limited, all suited up feels more ridiculous than he expected it too.

He sneaks into the narrowest street, where the least people are passing by and prepares himself to make a complete fool of himself for an asshole he hates, because of a different asshole he tried really hard not to hate but it’s getting harder with every bullshit move Kid pulls.

“Um, MI—” He chickens out, clears his throat. “Fuck me, I hate this. I’m going to kill this dickhead myself _,_ ” he murmurs under his breath before trying again. “HEY, MIRAGE! Come on out here, you dick! I need to talk to you!”

This is so stupid. Why did he think that would w—

“I hope you’re not here for another round, because to be frank, I don’t feel quite up to it.”

Alex jumps when a voice comes up from behind him. Mirage is leaning against the wall, suited and visible in his pitch-black outfit. He’s trying to play it casual but his posture is too tense, he’s balancing too much weight on that wall.

“Hey.”

“Hello,” Mirage says, and it’s so pleasant, Alex gets angry at Kid all over again. “What can I do for you?”

He realizes his mistake then; what on earth is he meant to say to him?

“I-I just…” He looks around the street, making sure no one is close enough to hear, then takes a step closer anyway. Mirage lowers his head at his approach, his hood falling further down his face. “Look, I know we have a sort of deal going between us. And I just-I wanted to say I’m sorry. Ki— _Pulse_ wasn’t supposed to do that, I didn’t know that he would. I’m _sorry_ , okay?” He casts his gaze down, then up again, kicking at a speck of dirt on the ground. “Um, so are you okay?”

Not for the first time, Alex wishes he could see his face. Mirage is quiet for too long, and Alex feels heat gather around his collar.

“I…” Mirage starts at last. “Thank you. You didn’t have to come all the way over here to say this.” His accent is thicker than usual, heavy with some emotion Alex doesn’t want to bother deciphering. “Though on that end, please don’t come here again.”

“Do you actually live around here?”

“Not that you’ll believe me, but no, I don’t, which is why you’ve been only extremely lucky to catch me here twice and I’m afraid I cannot guarantee you’ll manage to do it a third time if you need to.”

“Well, then how am I supposed to…” He trails off when he notices his mistake. Right. He’s not supposed to. Mirage is a villain, not matter how charming.

Mirage shrugs. “I would give you my phone number but then how will I leave threatening phone calls if _I_ need to?”

Alex snorts. “Well, since you’re alive enough to tease me, I guess I’ll take my leave. See you around, man.”

Mirage laughs. “You really dragged me here just for this?”

Alex tries not to show on his face the surprise at the statement. Dragged him there? So he wasn’t lying about not living near there. But the phrasing implied that he knew Alex was coming somehow.

Mirage turns to leave and he’s halfway to the end of the alley by the time Alex finds the voice to call out to him.

“Hey…! Before you go, uh…” _Don_ _’t ask. Do not ask_. The least he knows about him the easier it will be when this deal goes to shit. “What was your last thought?”

Mirage pauses, his posture tensing. “My last…?”

“Yeah, I mean—I don’t know if you noticed, I don’t know if you know any more superpowered people other than me but I talked to Pulse and Portal about it and… we think that the, uh, the powers we got... they correspond to our last thoughts.”

Mirage doesn’t respond. He’s so unmoving across from him, Alex wonders if he forgot he’s still visible.

“You did have a near-death experience, right? Before you got your powers?”

He doesn’t say something for far too long a time and Alex knows he fucked up somehow but he doesn’t know if it’s because his theory is wrong or because Mirage didn’t know and Alex shattered his perception of the world with his dumb question. He shouldn’t feel bad about it, not really, not when it was Mirage who ruined his entire world to begin with, and yet as the silence stretches on, heavy and awkward, and as he watches him lean more towards what Alex can assume is his uninjured side, he still feels like an ass for burdening him with that knowledge.

Eventually though, Mirage speaks, and his voice reveals nothing when he whispers, “ _I want to disappear._ ”

With that he rounds the corner and leaves him there, staring after him. Alex didn’t know what he expected, it made the simplest sort of sense after all, and still the knowledge settles wrong onto his stomach, right where Henry’s words remain lodged. _They just did what they thought was best in a bad situation_.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready to find out who Mirage really is.

When he gets home a terrible subway ride later, Henry is not in his bed. Alex swears in two languages and realizes with a wave of absurdity that he doesn’t have his roommate’s phone number. His _roommate_ _’s_ _phone number._ He might have taken this hatred thing a little beyond what was convenient.

Does June know Henry? He thinks Nora does but there’s no way she’ll ever let him live it down if he tells her that he needs to find his roommate whom he’s been so vocal about hating. He is certain June must know Pez yet this game of telephone is also more embarrassing than just stewing in his own undeserved concern. Whatever. Henry will be fine. It’s not like he got kidnapped.

It’s not like his roommate is a famous superhero and there’s a chance someone found out about his secret identity and mistakenly thought that Alex has any feelings other than extreme annoyance for his roommate and oh God, what if he got Henry killed—

“Are you all right?”

Henry’s voice from the door has him stumbling over his own two feet at the speed with which he turns to face him. He’s in his pyjamas and a pair of sneakers, a laundry basket full of wet clothes tucked against his side. His face is still tense with pain yet it’s almost overpowered by the curiosity with which he regards Alex.

“Where the fuck were you?” Alex asks, as if the basket isn’t any clue.

“Snowboarding,” Henry rolls his eyes. “I just had to wash my clothes.” He pushes his way past Alex into the room and towards the bathroom to hang the still wet clothes into the lines they had running close to the ceiling. Alex loathes those lines mostly because Henry is the only one who can reach them. Apparently the previous tenant who installed them did not realize that the next occupant might be average in height.

So it’s more than a little petty when he feels a hint of satisfaction when Henry hisses as he stretches to hang the clothes.

“You really don’t understand the concept of taking the day off, do you?”

“I need to wear something tomorrow,” Henry grumbles, rubbing circles against whatever bruising he has on his side. “What was I meant to do? Ask you to do it for me?”

The _yes_ gets stuck at the tip of his tongue and he frowns. What is it about injuries that make him like the most unpleasant of people?

As Henry lowers himself with too much care back down on his bed and Alex’s chest clenches in response, he thinks he gets it. He spent so long thinking of them both as his personal devils, without realizing that imagery painted them as strong. An annoyance first and foremost, but a constant one at that. And this vulnerability didn’t match the snarky confidence, the infuriating persistence that applied to both his rivals.

Alex may have a type on the people he antagonizes. Or maybe those are the kind of people that are interested enough to fight him back.

He turns to his roommate, ready for another compromise after a terrible, too long day. “Are you taking painkillers or do you wanna share a drink with me?”

His life quiets down for a full week after that.

Kid must realize he fucked up because he decides to go MIA, much to Portal’s annoyance. Alex doesn’t mind. He doesn’t feel like getting into a fight and he can’t promise himself not to deck him the next time he sees him; they both need the time to cool off. Mirage stays home, presumably, to heal from his injuries. In his home life, Henry spends more time in their room as he too is apparently still too bruised from his accident to partake in whatever recreational activity kept him out of the house most of the day.

Alex still feels guilty over the little stuff, like realizing he didn’t even know his damn phone number so he takes this opportunity to make an effort, waiting for it to backfire in a spectacular fashion.

It doesn’t.

Henry is much more pleasant than he ever gave him credit for. And he looks like he appreciates his company, which is something Alex never expected. The guy basically begged to be away from him the first time they met. Still, after bunking together for so long, the two of them get some quality-adjacent time together at last. They finish their movie marathon, and then another. They go from sharing popcorn to sharing lunch. And while sometimes it can still be awkward and cold, his own bitterness sneaking its ugly head from behind whatever positive emotion Henry slowly builds inside him, it gets easier the longer they try.

So he’s grateful for the week he gets before his peace gets shattered again.

He’s just entering an overstuffed pub when his phone pings, the warm, stale air hitting him in the face as he walks inside. The rumble of the people almost eats up the soft rock music playing from the speakers and even though he’s used to it, he has to take a moment to collect himself before he’s overwhelmed by the noise. He pushes his way through too many familiar strangers, some trying to make their way to their tables, some looking around for a place to seat. How Nora managed to get them a table on a Friday night in a place where half the student body frequented for some reason is beyond him, but she’s waiting there, legs crossed, looking at him expectantly. June comes back from the bar with a round of drinks just as Alex takes his seat.

“You couldn’t have picked a more crowded place?” Alex asks, looking around the place with his superhero instincts buzzing. As a person who spent the past couple of years fighting a man he couldn’t see, the complete lack of visibility in that place made him jittery.

“Another way you can phrase this is ‘thank you, Nora, for finding us a place.’.”

“No. I like my version better.”

June waves them both off, spreading the drinks between them. “Enough. We’re here now. _You_ pick a place next time if you want to. Now just relax.” She reaches over, rubs a hand on his shoulder. “How have you been?”

“Yeah, with work quiet it feels like we haven’t seen you in forever,” Nora perks up. “What have you been doing?”

Alex shifts his gaze between the two of them, wondering how well they would take the news that he has been hanging out at home with his also injured roommate. “Just using the break to catch on university work. ‘An invisible man keeps kicking my ass’ usually doesn’t cover late assignments as an excuse.”

June leans in forward, even though the chances of being heard over the cacophony of the place are low. “Did you manage to find him? What did he say?”

“More importantly, did you talk with Kid?”

Alex groans, sinking further into his seat. “Nope. He’s either avoiding me so I don’t crisp his ass, or he’s up to something. Either way I don’t like it.”

“’He’s up to something’?” June repeats. “Alex, you’re supposed to be on the same side. If you don’t trust him…”

“I know, I know! And we’ve fought together before! I’m _supposed_ to trust them both but…” He sighs. Portal and Pulse are supposed to be his allies, he knows that much. They’ve proven their loyalty before too. Alex and Kid were both there when Portal got injured, they trusted each other with their faces in solidarity, even if they didn’t exchange their names. Portal came through for Alex no matter what he asked of her. He knows Kid first became allies with her because he saved her during one of her first attempts at patrolling. And yet… “I think I just don’t trust anyone with powers, to be honest.”

“You have powers,” Nora points out. “So does Mirage.”

“You know it’s _exactly_ because of Mirage.”

“Alex,” she says with stern voice, ignoring June’s warning look at her to stop. “At some point you might want to consider that what happened was an accident and stop blaming him for everything.”

“ _Excuse me_?”

“Alex—” June tries.

“You weren’t there, _you don_ _’t get to—_ ”

“Hey, is that your roommate?”

June’s second attempt at halting the conversation succeeds, as Alex turns around immediately to see where she’s looking. She’s right too; Henry’s blond hair peaks over the top of the crowd, along with Pez’s much more characteristic lavender curls. They make their way further in front of the crowd, revealing his still bruised face holding the same level of discomfort Alex felt when he first walked in. Pez seems undeterred by the crowd but disappointment settles quickly when they realize there are no free tables to take.

Alex’s head snaps at June. “Don’t you dare—”

“Hey, Henry!” _Nora_ calls instead, her hand outstretched upward in a wave. “Over here!”

“ _Nora,_ ” he scowls. “I didn’t even know you knew him.”

Nora smirks, her look heavy with a meaning he can’t grasp. “We’ve met.”

At least Henry also looks like a deer caught in headlights as Pez drags him over to their table.

“Well, hello, darlings. What a great surprise.”

“Hey, guys.” June smiles at them both, before the low light over the bar lets her really notice them. “What happened? Are you all right?”

_“Car accident,”_ Henry and Pez say at the exact same time. Nora laughs. June looks confused but nods.

“Why don’t you two take a seat with us?”

Henry smiles but Alex feels discomfort rising with the idea. He blurts out the next part before he can stop it. “I’m sure Henry has better things to do. In fact, I bet he can’t get away fast enough.”

June kicks him under the table but it’s too late to take back what he said. The smile slips off Henry’s face to be replaced with an expression of hurt that’s made all the more pitiful by the bruising on his cheek. His throat bobs as he swallows, his voice tight when he speaks again. “Right. We wouldn’t want to _bother_ you.”

“You wouldn’t be—”

“Excuse me.”

Under the twin glares of June and Nora, Alex runs after him, all the way outside the bar. The cold air hits him the second he steps out the door, and he wishes he thought to bring his jacket. “Henry! Wait up!” Henry ignores him. “If not for me, then wait for Pez, dude, he’s still inside.”

Henry slows to a stop but he doesn’t turn around to look at him.

“Seriously? You can’t be that offended about this.”

“I’m not _offended_ , Alex,” he exclaims, rounding up on him. “I’m tired. _You_ decided out of the sudden that you wanted us to be friends, And now you do this. Is it that much to ask to know where you stand? I actually thought—” He catches his words, swallows them down.

“You thought what?”

Henry lets out a long breath, deflating along with it. Alex would be so much more comfortable if they had this conversation after his face healed. “I thought for a second that you enjoyed spending time with me. Fighting with your roommate all the time is _exhausting,_ Alex. And frankly? I’m done.”

“What does _that_ mean?”

“It means—” He gets interrupted by the sound of a ringtone as obnoxious as a morning alarm. Henry huffs. “Do you need to get that?”

He does. It’s his work phone. Alex’s face twists in an awkward apology but he still pries the phone out of his bag, ignoring the way Henry’s expression closes off again. “ _What_?” he snaps without meaning to.

_“You seem to be in a great mood. Hate to make it worse,”_ Kid’s voice comes from the other side of the line, low, almost like a whisper.

“Oh, fuck, are you dying?” Alex blurts out, startling Henry. Kid never calls him unless it’s an emergency. Hell, Kid never calls _anyone_ unless it’s an emergency. It has always been Portal encouraging them to work together, somehow convincing Kid to work with them when Alex would never bother trying.

_“Not quite yet, I’m afraid. I am, however, in a bit of a pinch and if you could be so kind as to lend a helping hand I would perhaps be inclined to say I even… owe you one.”_

Alex can’t recall the last time he ever wanted to refuse anything so much in his life. But he can’t leave him hanging. The only obligation they have agreed to is to have each other’s backs. “Where are you? What’s going on?”

_“I think your beloved supervillain might be involved in something big.”_

“I told you not to go _after him, Kid_!” he hisses, too loudly. For once the fact that they call him Kid instead of Pulse comes to use. He’ll be sure to mention it next time Kid complains about it. Even so, he mouths an apology to Henry before turning away from him, lowering his voice. “Where the fuck are you?”

_“Hey, hey. I didn’t go after him. I was following a promising lead. It’s hardly my fault he was involved, now was it?”_

Kid gives him an address. Alex recognizes the building and he knows it’s not Mirage’s usual target, mostly offices. A feeling of apprehension shivers up his spine even as he promises to be there soon.

He turns back to apologize to Henry again, make sure they’ll talk later maybe, because he’s right and he hasn’t been entirely fair with him. But when he looks back to where he left him, Henry is already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I wish I had time to include the next scene as well but studying is kicking my butt and I wanted to try update each story at least once before November starts (note the 'wanted'). Still this is still a fair-sized chapter I'd say! Please let me know what you thought of it before you go!
> 
> As always find me on tumblr @ saltfics! See ya~


	4. Chapter 4

After texting the girls that he needs to go, Alex follows Kid's instructions to the corporate offices just outside the city. On a Sunday afternoon, the place is practically deserted. Getting in a building where your arch-nemesis doesn't want you to enter is not as easy but the person on the fourth floor who left their window open probably didn't expect a fire-propelled superhero to fly his way through, cursing under his breath the entire time.

He connects his phone to his mic, tries to call on Kid. "Dude, where the fuck are you?"

" _Twelfth floor. Come on, Spitfire, show me why your boyfriend named you so."_

"I will walk out of this room, I swear."

" _And to the twelfth floor. Good. Go on, then."_ He's going to strangle him.

He contemplates taking the elevator but something about fire-based superhero in a potentially tense situation in a tiny little room that keeps going up and down fifteen floors doesn't stick right as an idea. Kid is waiting for him at the door to the stairwell, leaning against the wall, one leg crossed over the other. So glad Alex made it there in time to protect this guy from his own arrogance.

Kid's costume is sleek and form-fitting. Where Mirage's outfit is an absolute black, Kid is dressed in charcoal, with ruby lines running down his sides like an outline, and from the emblem in front of his heart, spreading across his chest. A red mask hides his face from view, making the bright hazel pop even more, and the mischief along with it.

"I hope I didn't interrupt anything important," Kid says in lieu of a greeting.

"Anything you'd interrupt would be more important."

"You wound me." He pushes himself up from the wall and leads Alex inside. "So I did a little research," he explains as they walk through the double doors. "Apparently, the offices on the top three floors have been deserted after the company sold the space so they wouldn't go under, poor things."

The room smells of paint and plastic but the light is too scarce to see anything. Alex goes to strike his fingers for a flame.

"I would not do that if I were _you,_ " Kid warns, dragging his words to tease.

"And why not?"

He flips a switch somewhere on the wall and a line of white industrial lights flicker on. Alex gasps.

"That's why."

"Are those... explosives?" Alex whispers, barely moving his lips, as he walks closer to the far end of the empited office space. Large metal barrels are stacked at the farthest wall. The warning signs on them steal beats from his heart and he feels his chest tighten with fear, even as the truth of what he's seeing doesn't fully click.

These could burn the entire building to the ground. In the best-case scenario.

"Spitfire, are you all right?" Kid asks, placing a hand on his arm and Alex holds on to the sensation because he can feel _the temperature rising, the stink of smoke, the taste of it in his throat and the weight in his lungs that burned without oxygen... Alex is burning, he's burning... he's going to die here..._

"Hey!" Kid shakes him. Alex jolts out of it, taking a couple of deep breaths for good measure.

"Pulse, there's no way these are Mirage's."

Kid looks surprised at the use of his superhero name. He knows it shows how serious Alex is being. But Mirage wouldn't do this. He wouldn't fuck up like this, wouldn't step out of line. Not again.

"I'm willing to bet they are."

"Why?"

Kid smiles. He holds one finger up to halt him, his eyes going to the ceiling as if he's trying to remember something. He nods.

"Because he's here."

A familiar voice calls out in pain and Alex jumps, whirling towards the sound just as Mirage flickers into existence a few steps away from them. He sinks to his knees, clutching at his chest as he gasps, coughing and choking while Kid smirks down at him.

"Kid, stop," Alex urges him, watching in horror as Mirage curls further in on himself. "Stop it."

"If I _stop_ , he'll disappear again." He tilts his head, looking at Mirage in mock pity. "Unless you pinky swear, darling?"

"Fuck off," Mirage chokes out. He's trembling, curling further and further in on himself until he hides from view in a whole different way, much more painful than the last. Pulse's powers are fucking terrifying.

"You heard him," Kid shrugs. "He has an office hideout full of chemicals, S. I think he deserves a little pain." He winks at Alex, the joy echoed in his voice. "You should take his mask off."

Alex freezes. He could. What if he did? What if he could finally find out—

"These are not _mine_ ," Mirage growls. He pulls himself higher to look to Alex but he can't see his face behind his hood, can't measure for himself how sincere Mirage is being. "I came to check it out... just as you did."

"Oh, for sure," Kid laughs.

"If this... was my bloody lair, would I have just— let you waltz in here?"

Alex turns to Kid, hoping for some confirmation. Kid waves him off. "You returned after I got here. I can _sense_ you."

"Look, Kid, we can interrogate him. We will. But _stop this!_ It's brutal."

Kid scoffs.

Alex is stuck, looking back and forth between the two, unable to make a decision. If Kid is right, then Mirage did more than betray his trust. He's dangerous and if he can save even one person from Alex's _almost_ fate, then he has to stop him. Now. But if Mirage is telling the truth... If there's even a chance—

"I said _stop it_!" He grabs Kid's shoulders, trying to shove him away.

Shock takes over Kid's features, then anger. Behind him, he can hear Mirage take a deep breath, and he knows Kid has let him go for the moment.

By the time he looks back, there's nobody there.

"If these really aren't yours, get the fuck aw—"

Kid's punch comes out of nowhere and it sends him stumbling back. "I called you here to _help_ me."

"Help you do what? Torture someone?"

"How about stop a person that's about to burn down the city? I thought you'd understand!"

He can feel his hands warming up, itching to break into flames. The first spark lights on his fingertips and he gasps. He can't afford to lose control now, not in here. Not with an ally nearby, and with Mirage too vulnerable in a two-against-one fight.

Kid tackles him to the floor. Alex's breath breaks out of his chest, but the flames get snuffed out in the process. "Stop it! If you light a fire in here, you'll burn us both!"

"Get off of me!"

Kid pins his legs with his knees, his arms to the floor. "Stay down, keep quiet."

Alex squirms, trying to get away. There's nothing he can do without lighting up, and if he lights up—

"S, don't bloody make me—"

Kid chokes on the rest of his sentence. He's pulled backward, back arching away from him. Mirage screams as Kid's power activates, but he keeps his hold, even as he blinks back into existence. He doesn't let go until Alex goes free.

Kid throws a punch but misses, so he amps up the pressure, sending Mirage to the floor.

"Pulse—" Alex calls out, stumbling to his feet.

He doesn't want to fight Kid again.

He can't let him kill Mirage.

Or so he thinks, because the moment Kid turns to him, Mirage gets back on his feet, slipping out of sight. Kid sees Alex’s eyes widen at something behind him. He turns around with a frustrated growl.

Alex jumps in, trying to pull him back, to stop him and put an end to this.

That’s his first mistake.

Or fourteenth—he’s lost count at this point.

He’s not sure exactly what happens. The problem with fighting with Mirage is that it’s hard to know exactly what he’s doing.

Alex grabs on Kid’s shoulder, too roughly, not like an ally but as an enemy. And terrifying though Kid might be, he doesn’t have a lot more control over his powers than Alex either. Mirage must touch him at the same time—Kid must feel the attacks coming, and he panics.

For all the times he’s seen Kid’s powers at work, for all the times Kid has explained it to him, Alex never experienced it himself.

Until now.

Pain shoots through him, down every nerve from his heart to his limbs and back, and over and over again, all the time. Every nerve ending is fired jolting his body like a ceaseless shock of electricity. Maybe he screams. Maybe he falls. There’s no space left to process the information, nothing to send the signal to protect himself.

Even when the world goes dark, he’s not sure the pain ever stops.

Consciousness returns in bits and pieces. The generic fabric detergent scent of his comforter. The sound of students always roaming around the dorms. And a headache that keeps building the more he focuses on the waking world.

Alex groans, pressing his face against the pillow. He throws a hand over his face, hiding the light as he blinks his eyes open. What kind of hangover—

Wait.

_Wait._

Memories flood back all at the same time, and Alex jumps up in his bed, moaning in pain as his brain takes a dip at the change in altitude.

He’s in his room back at the dorm, a pair of clothes that are _not_ his own thrown over his superhero suit. His mask is off.

“Are you all right?”

No. No way.

Alex gapes, his chest tight with fear as he turns to the familiar voice. A man is sitting on his desk, studying him carefully. Mirage is still wearing his costume but his hood has been pulled down, revealing hair gelled back and tinted purple. The mask still hides his face up to the top of his nose and his eyes are obscured by a pair of reading glasses, unreadable as they’re trained on him.

“Alex?” he asks, and Alex’s heart skips a beat. “Are you _all right_?”

“How _the fuck_ do you know my name?”

“We’re in your dorm and you’re worried about your name?”

The pressure in his chest expands, his breathing picks up its pace. He’s screwed. Fuck, fuck, he’s so _fucked_. Mirage knows his name. He knows where he lives. He’s going to put everyone in danger. His family. What if he already knows about June? And when Henry gets back—

Oh, God, _Henry_.

He doesn’t know what time it is but considering how late it was when Alex caught up with Kid, Henry should have been back by now.

“Where is my roommate?”

Mirage flinches, leaning away from him. “What?”

“Come on, there’s another bed here, I know you know I don’t live here alone. Where is my _roommate_?" he repeats, feral with anger that's really only about seventy-percent fear. "What did you do to him?”

Mirage’s eyes are wide with shock. He gets up from the desk, starting to pace. “Relax. He’s- he’s fine. Why do you care anyway?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, he was packing when I got you here.”

Packing? Is that what he meant when he said he was done? “You’re lying.”

Mirage scoffs. “I don’t care that much about you or your roommate, Alex.”

“ _Stop calling me Alex,_ " he snaps, ignoring how odd it feels to hear his name spoken in that voice, the one that always demanded all of his attention. Mirage uses his name in soft tones, even when the rest of the sentence is less than kind like he knows he should not be allowed to take it.

“You live in a building full of people. I imagined you wouldn’t want a random student to pass by your door and hear me call you anything else _but_ Alex.”

Alex glares at him. He wishes he felt a little less unsteady so he didn’t have to stay hunched over in his bed while Mirage played out his power trip. “And what should I call _you_ then?” he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Nice try.”

“So you know my name, my face, and where I live but you cannot even give me a name?”

“If I gave you a name would you believe me?”

“Maybe.”

He can’t see the lower half of Mirage’s face with the mask still on but he knows the bastard is smirking. “Call me Henry.”

“Go fuck yourself.” Mirage laughs without much humor. “Where _is_ Henry? What did you to him?”

“Why do you assume—”

“Because for all we fight, he would _not_ leave me here, unconscious, with _you_. So _where_ is he?”

Mirage freezes, tension hardening his every line.

“If you hurt him, I swear—”

“Enough!” he yells, emotion catching in his voice. “Your roommate’s fine. I didn’t find him here, okay? I found a note. He went to sleep at a friend’s and he’ll come to pack in the morning. A…Pez? Satisfied?”

The use of Pez's name almost makes him believe it but it still makes little sense. “Then why did you say you did, you dick?”

Mirage shrugs. “I wanted to see if you’d squirm.”

Alex finally gets up, walking right into Mirage’s personal space.“You’re a real fucking asshole, you know that?” 

“I’m a villain, Alex.” He takes a step back from him as he nears. “Don’t come any closer.”

“Or wh—” Mirage disappears from sight before he can even finish the question. “Oh, _come on_.”

When he hears his voice again, Mirage is already by the door.

“Seeing as you’re well enough to be angry at me, I guess this is my cue to leave.”

Alex glares at his general direction. “Why are you here in the first place?”

Mirage is quiet for so long, Alex wonders if he phased through the wall—can he do that? “You helped me.” His voice is small, quiet, like he’s talking to himself but he’s still not sure if he should be saying this. “And you got hurt for it. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

His stomach twists with emotion he can’t name; it’s not unpleasant but it hurts him, anyway. Alex takes a tentative step closer, and he wishes Mirage could trust him enough to come back, to lower the mask. He’s not going to hurt him. Hasn’t he proven that yet?

Still, that’s not what Alex says.

“Why do you call yourself a villain?”

Silence.

Alex shifts his weight from one foot to the other as heat rises to his cheeks. “Mi? Are you still there?”

“Because I’m not a hero.”

He jumps. Mirage is a lot closer to him than he thought, almost right in front of him. Is he looking at him right now?

“Were those things yours? Were you lying?”

“Keep your eye on Pulse, Alex,” Mirage says instead. “You don’t have to be allies because he calls himself a hero.”

His heart climbs to his throat. Despite himself, he reaches out to touch him. His fingers brush against the smooth fabric for only a moment before he’s out of reach again.

“You know him?”

“Thank you for saving me.” He’s back at the door again. The handle pulls down and Alex has to fight himself not to stop him. “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.”

The door opens and closes. Paranoid, Alex searches the air in front of him, the corners of his room. He feels watched. Vulnerable.

Mirage knows his name. He knows where he lives.

Kid almost killed him and definitely hates his guts at this point.

And so does Henry, who’s finally moving out, just as they started to get along.

Well. It was a matter of time, right? Alex couldn’t be a real hero if he didn’t fuck up his own life first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Yes, this was short! But also I'm in the middle of nano, so I can't really bring myself to be sorry for updating ^^; 
> 
> Please let me know what you thought anw! Also come yell at me on tumblr while Im away this month! Find me @ saltfics.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I call this one the peak dumbassery chapter. Enjoy!

Sleep hasn't been this hard in years. Every time he closed his eyes, a different horror awaited him, all the stress of the past few days—the past few _years_ , attacked him in different ways, one at a time, over and over and over again. Walls of fire and smoke. Mirage screaming under Kid's hold. Kid's own betrayed look, the semblance of trust they built between them burned down without the need to use his powers. His identity exposed, misused, his family at the mercy of a villain much crueler than Alex thought he could be. Even Henry haunted his nightmares, blaming him for chasing him out of the apartment then getting hurt anyway even after leaving Alex behind. The perfect collateral damage to the most misguided superhero.

Alex doesn't sleep. So he gets up, goes to the shower as he always does after a nightmare and plays with his fire until it doesn't scare him anymore, even if tonight he can't stop hating it, that little piece that lodged into him without his permission, and when he tried to make something good out of it, it still fucked up everything.

Only after the first light has already started slipping in through his half-closed blinds does he finally nod off for good, his wet hair leaving a growing stain on his pillow.

It's the sound of keys on a lock that wakes him up.

He jumps to his feet, dizzy with the remnants of sleep, one hand behind his back ready to spark. The door opens, and an exhausted-looking Henry stumbles in, jolting when he sees Alex posed to fight.

"What is it? What's wrong?" he asks, searching the room for any sign of danger.

Alex short-circuits for a moment. Henry looks absolutely wrecked; his still fading bruises cut a grim image with the sheer exhaustion weighing him down, the dark shadows, the hunched shoulders. But he's fine. He's alive and unharmed, looking at him with innocent confusion, safe in their room.

Alex doesn't think. He closes the distance between them and pulls him into a hug.

"Alex?" Henry mutters into his shoulder. "Hey, are you all right?"

_ Are you all right? _

Wow. He must really need to sleep if he's daydreaming about Mirage right now.

"Where the fuck have you been?" he asks when he pulls back, too breathless to hold any real anger.

"At Pez's. I left you a note." Henry looks mildly alarmed at his reaction, and Alex can't blame him. Last time they talked they argued because Alex always kept him at arm's length, yet here he is, acting like Henry owed it to him to tell him where he went off at night. "What's going on? You look... shaken."

'Shaken' is a way of putting it. 'Paranoid after fighting two people he didn't want to fight and accidentally being knocked out by a guy who is supposed to be on his side' is another one. For a moment he wonders what would happen if he just said it. Like that. All cards on the table. Hey, so I'm a fucking superhero and I thought my cryptic arch-nemesis might have murdered you.

"Just had a rough night," Alex shrugs, burying the urge along with the need for some misplaced understanding. "And I was, uh, worried." He clears his throat. "About. You."

"You were?"

Alex chuckles, embarrassment pitching his voice higher, which in turn makes him even more uncomfortable. "Don't sound so surprised."

Henry shakes his head, waving him off, and moves towards his part of the room. He stops in front of his desk, studying it like he's trying to find something. Alex remembers then what Mirage said about the note.

"Henry?" Alex approaches him, lingering at the edge of their bookcase, the makeshift divider between them. "Are you really moving out?" It might be the lack of sleep but his stomach is twisted in three different directions, and the moment between the question and the answer seems to stretch for longer than it should.

His answer, however, comes before any words, when Henry starts pulling books and other knickknacks from the shelves. "Finally, right?" he huffs, and though he deserves that, Alex still feels a prick of hurt. Henry walks past him to the closet and pulls out his suitcase and a couple of folded up cardboard boxes, probably leftovers from when he moved in. What a forward-thinking guy, good for fucking him.

Alex takes another step towards him, then regrets it and backs off again. He's full of nervous energy, wired from his own fatigue and stress. He shifts his weight around, reaches a hand towards him before letting it drop with a quick shrug. "You don't have to go."

"Alex, you wanted me out the moment I got here."

"No,  _you're_ the one who said you didn't want to stay."

Henry pauses, turning to him with a confused look on his face. "What do you mean?"

Alex scoffs. "You really don't know?" 

There isn't a hint of understanding in Henry's expression and for a second he wants to kick him out himself. 

Alex snaps. "When you walked in here the first thing you said was 'isn't there anyone else you could put me with?'. Like what the _hell_ am I supposed to do with that, you complete asshole?"

Henry gapes at him, his blue eyes wide . "I- I didn't—I didn't realize you heard that."

"Seriously?  It was still a dick thing to _say_."

Henry looks away, brows furrowing. At least he has the decency to look remorseful. "I know. You have to believe me, I had... there was a reason I said that."

"Which was?"

He withdraws in further, cringing like he's in actual physical pain. "I can't say." Alex opens his mouth, probably to yell at him, but Henry quickly adds, "I know it doesn't make sense. But you have to trust me, it had absolutely nothing to do with you, Alex, I swear." He sighs, leaning over with his palms spread on the desk. He looks so tired. "I'm truly sorry you heard that. Is that why you've been cross with me the entire time?"

"Did I need anything else?" he retorts but as the hurt look refuses to leave Henry's face, and after spending the whole night worried about him, he almost feels like a dick for it. Almost. "Well, good to know you didn't mean it. I guess."

"I didn't. Not in that way. I guess it doesn't matter much anymore," he shrugs, unfolding one of the boxes.

"Look, you don't..." Alex trails off.

Henry looks up, a brow raised in question. 

But Alex can't finish that thought. He looks to his desk, and he can see Mirage sitting there, giving him nothing while he has everything. All the cards. All the secrets. Leaving him with a promise that means nothing if Alex can't trust him, and Alex can't trust him when there's still an office building full of fucking explosives unaccounted for. He never explained it, just told him not to trust Kid when Kid told him not to trust Mirage. So Alex doesn't know _who_ the fuck to trust. The only thing he can do is minimize all the collateral damage he can salvage. Even if it sucks for him.

"You don't know have to be a stranger," he says instead with a forced smile that barely moves his lips. Alex's heart plummets to his guts. "I mean, after you get settled somewhere. Maybe we just weren't good roommates. I'll see you in class, right?"

Henry's face falls. Alex has to fight to keep his fake smile intact. "Right, of course," Henry nods, his voice cold. "Thank you, Alex."

"Cool. Well, uh, I gotta take care of a thing, so. I'll talk to you later?"

Henry hums a confirmation, refusing to meet his gaze again.

Without being sure where he needs to go, only that he needs to get out, Alex grabs his coat and shoes and slams the door behind him, trying not to think of how he might have just missed the last time Henry would be in their room.

"What do you  _mean_ he's moving out?"

Out of other options, Alex called his crisis team, aka Nora and June, to meet him at their usual coffee shop so he could co-miserate with them. That, plus let them know he was alive, since he noticed an abundance of missed calls on his phone once he finally turned it on.

What he didn't sign up for but should have seen coming, was the lecture.

"Which part stumped you? The moving or the out?" Alex rolls his eyes, taking a sip from his coffee that he lowkey wishes had some alcohol in it.

The place is bustling at this time of the day, students taking up every corner. They've been here often enough to know their regulars, and to know at what time of the day they can come here without being heard. At this hour, when all the students are wearing headphones because the shop itself raises its volume a little higher, and the farthest table at the corner, two from their own is an hour in and loud in their weekly DnD game, it's the perfect time for a superhero team to have a semi-passionate discussion that shouldn't be overheard.

"The part where you didn't explain what you did to him," Nora says, leaning back in her chair.

"Why do you assume I'm the one who did something to him? Again?"

"Because you've always been a bit of a dick to him?"

"All right. Take it from the beginning," June interferes, though as grateful as Alex is for that, he knows her support won't last for long when she hears the whole story.

He tells her anyway. About Kid's call and the explosives. About Mirage in his room, and Henry in the morning. Her interest in Mirage's secret identity fades once she realizes even with his hood off he didn't reveal anything, and by the end of it, June looks like she has a headache with his name on it, while Nora has an unreadable expression on her face, somewhere between amusement and disbelief but weighted with something he doesn't understand.

"So let me get this straight," Nora asks. "You told Henry to leave because you're scared that  Mirage  might hurt him? You think _Mirage_ will hurt Henry?"

"Well, I don't _know_ but I don't want to risk it. Is that all you got from what I said?"

Nora crosses her arms in front of her chest, unamused but she doesn't offer anything else but her silent judgement.

"I hate to say this but Alex is right only in that it's not the most pressing matter at this point. Though Nora is right, you're being a dumbass and unless you really don't want Henry to stay, you should call him."

"I don't want him to get hurt!"

"Mirage isn't going to hurt him!" Nora interferes. "He wouldn't hurt innocent people, right?"

Alex's heart does a backflip, as it always does when it comes to this. "He hurt  _me_!"

"That was an accident," she says, as she always does too, but her voice is much softer.

"And what will Henry be, huh? I don't _want_ —" Alex shakes his head, swallows past the lump in his throat. "I don't want him to be another accident. Especially one that doesn't come back." 

He doesn't know when he turned away from them but he looks back up now, and he hates what he sees. Subtle grief lingers in June's eyes, a side-effect of his death that's far more unfortunate than the fire. Nora's opposition has faded, replaced by a sadness that doesn't suit her. He wants them to yell at him again. It's better than the pain they're forced to remember.

"I don't know what Mirage's deal is," he admits. "I really don't. I keep trying to figure him out. I give him chances he hasn't earned, let him get away with things. But I think—I only trust him as far as I can see him, and Mirage is not a person I can see for long." June takes his hand under the table, squeezes once. Alex smiles at her. "So, hey, if I can protect some people, just in case, I will. Hell, if I thought for a moment that I could survive without you, I'd keep you away from it too."

Weak chuckles go around the table. They don't chase all of the heaviness away but they help , no matter how little.

"It's your decision," June nods, giving him another soft squeeze. "Just... don't shut everyone out, okay?"

"I'm not going to shut him out. I just don't want him to be home the next time a supervillain comes looking for me, you know?"

They mumble their agreements, both of them half-hearted. "Speaking of supervillains," Nora adds, "have you spoken to Kid since?"

Alex snorts. "Kid is not a supervillain."

"He knocked you out, Alex." The cold fury in June's voice startles him. And as much as he dislikes Kid, he _probably_ doesn't deserve June's wrath. Nor would he survive it.

"It was self-defense. And technically I did attack him first. I'd be less sympathetic but I'm also the last person who can lecture anyone over control of their powers."  Kid's shocked expression slips to the front of his mind, the betrayal shattering the aura of easy confidence he always held. Truth is, he hasn't contacted Kid because he's slightly ashamed of his actions too. Whatever his feelings towards Mirage, they're supposed to look out for each other. 

But also he really  _ really  _ wants to punch him in the face, so he's waiting for the feeling to pass before he sees him.

June frowns. "Wait—Alex, how did Mirage take you home? What happened to Kid?"

"I assume he's fine because I have about five missed calls from him and thirteen unopened texts from Portal."

" _Alex_ ," she says, failing to hold back the exasperation from her voice, "Is it at all possible that your team doesn't know you're alive?"

"What?"

Nora leans forward, her elbows resting on the table. "You were last seen unconscious, presumably kidnapped by a disappearing supervillain whose lair you may or may not have discovered? And then you didn't answer any of their eighteen attempts to contact you?" Alex's guilty silence is answer enough. "I'd say there's a sixty-three percent chance they think you're dead."

"Only sixty-three?"

"I wouldn't put it past Portal to believe you and Mirage are just enjoying the night together, and you avoiding Kid is not news in any way."

June fails to stifle a laugh. "Can I be there when you tell Portal that Mirage took you home?"

Alex glares at her. "You stopped being worried for me real fast there, Bug."

"Oh, shut up, you're fine." 

After Alex promises to call Portal the moment they're done , they switch the conversation to something lighter, back to school work and family and personal lives. June doesn't stop looking at him like she's seeing a ghost for the rest of the night. Alex doesn't expect her to.

"Oh, by the way, Nora, I need a new mask."

"Alex, _come on_."

"Mirage never returned it!"

Alex doesn't call Kid. Or Portal. Instead he drops by safehouse A on his way home, hoping he'll find at least one of them there. The rest of the plan depends on whom he'll find. It's a less than solid idea, and it goes out the window anyway when he slips inside the building and hears not one but two voices inside, already bickering.

At least Portal will be there to stop him from barbecueing his teammate.

They're already yelling at each other when he makes his way inside, sticking close to the wall, waiting for them to notice him first.

"Tell me again. When did you last see him?" Portal says pacing in front of the couch where Kid is sitting. Her dark hair is untied and frizzed out, like she has been messing with it all day.

Kid is sitting with his head in his hands, all but shaking with frustration. "I told you. When S passed out, Mirage let go. He must have grabbed him or something because then S disappeared too."

"And then what?"

"I _don't know_ , P!" he shouts, and though Alex can't see his face from his position, he's sure he's glaring.

Portal stops pacing to yell right back at him. "How can you _not_ know? You can sense them! You couldn't stop Mirage from leaving the build..." Portal's eyes meet Alex's and she stops, gaping at him. "Spitfire?"

Kid whirls around, eyes wide.

"Sorry," Alex teases as he walks deeper into the room. "I would have said something sooner but it was too sweet to see Portal here fight for my honor."

Portal laughs out her relief as Kid rounds the couch towards him. Alex tenses when he reaches for him.

"You bloody bastard," he says and actually pulls him into a hug. Now he knows how Henry felt this morning. It lasts only a second before he steps back, still keeping his hands on Alex's shoulders. "I thought—I didn't mean to hurt you, you have to believe me."

Alex stares at him, more surprise at his reaction than the two of them are to see him alive. "I... I know, dude. Just don't do it again, okay?"

"Of course."

"S, what happened to you?" Portal asks as she comes over to take her turn at hugging him apparently. "Are you hurt? Is Mirage okay?"

" _Is Mirage okay?_ You can't be serious, Portal," Kid all but growls at her.

"He's not a bad dude!" Portal interjects.

Alex ignores the both of them and makes his way to the couch. His body still aches all over from the day before, and he groans as he lowers himself down to a sitting position.

Kid turns to him, the already thin lips he has pressed so tight they practically disappear from his face. "Do you need me to take care of that?"

"What do you..." Before he even finishes the sentence, the pain recedes from his limbs like a wave pulled back from the sand. It'll come back eventually but for now, Alex can breathe with more ease. " _Dude_." Alex melts, weightless against the pillows. "Where have you been hiding that?"

Kid grins at him, all sharp cheekbones and dangerous mischief. "A guy has to keep a few tricks up his sleeve, don't you think?"

"Well, I hope all your tricks are this pleasant."

"I guess we'll see."

Portal plops down on the cushion next to him. "Kid, that sounds mildly threatening."

"If we're still on the mildly, we're doing great," Alex says, patting her twice on the arm. He turns to Kid. "Hey... Are you sure the place yesterday was Mirage's?"

"I followed a lead from him there—and don't you dare get on my case again about chasing after him, clearly he's in more trouble than he lets on." Kid lowers himself down to sit on the edge of the coffee table, posed with perfect nonchalance despite the sterness in his voice. "And he entered the building immediately after we did. What seems more likely to you? That he followed the exact same lead I did at the exact same time, or that he knew we were there because he had the place bugged and came to stop us? Honestly, Spitfire."

Alex stares at him. His words make perfect sense. It's just that Mirage rarely does. Their relationship, so to speak, has never been exactly founded on logic. 

He trusts Kid less than he did after what happened, but he also never quite managed to trust Mirage either. Yes, the Mirage Alex has been fighting wouldn't hurt innocent people.

The one who burned down the building with Alex still inside already had .

"Spitfire," Kid says, his voice steady, assured. But Kid is always steady. He's always confident in his own damn self as if he's one step ahead of them. "You can't trust Mirage. No matter how much you want to."

Portal looks at him with concern, something stuck on the tip of her tongue that she doesn't bring herself to say.

Caught between two equally impossible options, Alex does the only thing he can do. He schools his expression and nods at Kid like he gets it. He doesn't say that Mirage said the same thing about him. He doesn't let him know he trusts them both just as little.

He nods and he smiles, and he'll do his own thing. Mirage is right. He doesn't have to work with Kid just because he's a hero. But he sure as hell won't let Mirage convince him he can do no wrong again.

"All right, Kid. Let's catch the guy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... A moment of silence for everyone's collective braincells.
> 
> Lmao, anyway. Let me know what you thought in the comments below and also come yell at me on tumblr @ saltfics if you want!


	6. Chapter 6

Alex returns home expecting to find Henry already gone. As he walks inside the room, however, he realizes that might have been the nicer option. It takes him a second to place that rough, awful sound, to trace it to the bathroom and recognize it for what it is. But as soon as the momentary surprise gives way to fear, Alex rushes in, not even bothering to knock in his haste.

Henry is bent over the sink, grasping at the edges with knuckles white from the pressure. His forehead rests lightly on the faucet as his chest moves in exaggerated motions, taking breaths too fast, too swallow. The sound grates against Alex’s ears. It’s nightmares and smoke and choking, it’s every horror he’s wished every night he won’t ever have to face again.

Except Henry’s not running out of oxygen. He’s not suffocating. But he is panicking, and somehow Alex finds it much harder to help him with that.

Still, he tries.

“Henry? Hen?” he calls out to him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder and only turning him around when he doesn’t react to the touch. “Hey.  _ Hey _ . What is it? What’s wrong?”

There are tears in his eyes, trickling down trails on his cheeks already gone through too many times, the wet stains left behind accented by the cold light above them. Henry is curled in, his shoulders hunched, and he trembles uncontrollably, his feet wobbling beneath him.

Alex grabs his arms and lowers them both to the floor. But when Henry meets his gaze at last, his eyes are large and desperate, the blue bright behind the tears and fragile like glass. His lips part to speak and Alex sees a small drop of blood welling on a cut there.

“I can’t—I can’t,” Henry gasps. He curls further in, clutching his chest with one hand, his hair with another, closing himself off entirely. Alex has to catch his shoulders to keep him unfolded before he can lose all contact. “I—can’t— _ anymore _ . Everything I do. No matter  _ what _ I do… it’s always  _ wrong _ — _ I’m sorry _ .”

Alex shushes him, as gently as he can. “Hey, no. No. What are you talking about? Henry. Okay, just breathe. Breathe. Don’t pan—”

Henry shoots him a look.

“Sorry,” Alex flinches. “Force of habit.” What does June do when  _ he  _ panics? She usually guides him on breathing. But Henry will barely look at him. Wait. The counting thing. He remembers that. Mostly. Yeah. He can do this. “Okay, okay, let’s do this. I remember this. Five things, uh, five things you can see?”

“Alex—”

“Five things. Come on, Henry.”

“I… You?” he tries, and Alex smiles at him, nodding at him to go on.

Alex guides him through the rest of the process, only fucking up the order once. Not soon enough but  _ soon _ , Henry is leaning against the wall, his head tilted back and his eyes closed, a frustrated expression on his face that’s still a little red.

Alex is sitting cross-legged in front of him, his gaze roaming around without purpose so he doesn’t stare. He lasts about half a minute in the silence. “Hey…” he says, clenching his fists so he doesn’t reach out again. “What happened?”

“I’m fine.”

“Clearly,” Alex deadpans. “But what were you talking about?”

“It’s nothing.”

“ _ Henry _ .”

“I’m just tired.”

“Of?” Alex insists. He tries to keep his voice soft, not prying but helpful, even if he is a bit curious too.

Henry sighs. He blinks his eyes open though he’s still not looking at him, just stares unseeing at a spot on the ceiling. “I’ve knotted too many strings. And when one of them burns, they all come down.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

Henry huffs but there’s a hint of his smile on his face. “You’re not supposed to.”

Alex frowns. He has no idea what that means but he doesn't want to push him any further. He looks around the crowded bathroom, the floor still wet from what he can only assume was Henry's earlier shower. Henry keeps his own eyes anywhere but on Alex, and there's still a faint red tint to his cheeks and up his ears.

"Hey," Alex says. "You don't have to be embarrassed about it. How many times have I woken you up with nightmares?" He quirks a smile but it doesn't reach.

"I'm not embarrassed. I'm just tired," Henry shrugs, his gaze falling to his lap. "And if I remember correctly you always tell me in no uncertain terms to fuck off when that happens."

Alex cringes. That's fair. 

Then he settles as comfortably as he can on the floor and makes a decision. 

"Do you know why I don't like the supers?" he whispers, his voice scratching against his throat on the way out. He catches the edge of his shirt and wraps it and unwraps it around his fingers, pulling at it. Still he doesn't miss the wide-eyed look Henry gives him, horror building in his gaze. "I was really surprised when you gave your speech about superheroes."

"Yes, that was... excessive," he almost chuckles but it slips out as a breathless little sound, too afraid of whatever Alex is about to say next.

"No, I don't think you were wrong. You just... I don't know, I guess you reminded me of a few things. I keep thinking about it, to be honest. It can't find a way to settle in my head."

"Alex..."

"I used to  _ love _ Mirage when he first showed up, you know," he admits, closing his eyes at the sound of his own confession, like obscuring his vision could protect him from truths he doesn't let himself think about anymore. "He wasn't even Mirage yet—he was just this unnamed person, this pile of floating clothes"—he smiles, though it lasts too little—"that some people claimed helped them. He wasn't stealing at that point either, just helping wherever he could. And I thought that was really, really cool."

He opens his eyes again then to find Henry staring at him, tears already collecting in his eyes. The blush has fled from his cheeks but now he's a shade too pale, looking like he's going to be sick. And here Alex thought he could distract him from his anxiousness.

"Hey, come on. I haven't even reached the sad part yet," he jokes but Henry only swallows, the motion slow and prominent. "Henry?"

"Don't do this," he whispers, shaking his head and some of his tears free. "I can't do this." Henry pushes himself to his feet, almost stepping over Alex to get out of the cramped space.

Alex scrambles after him. "What am I doing?"

Henry is standing in the middle of the room, looking around at his semi-packed things like he can't figure out where to start, except the lost look in his expression can't be related to packing. He runs a hand through his hair, tugging slightly, before he half-heartedly moves to rearrange some clothes in his open suitcase.

And despite everything he told him yesterday, Alex can't let him leave like this. "You don't have to go," he says, his stomach twisting when Henry goes rigid in response. "I'm sorry I didn't say this sooner but you don't have to leave. Just stay. It's fine. I know I've been a dick to you but I liked having you around lately. I don't want to go through the process of getting used to the new guy," he jokes at the end to loosen some of the tension pulling at Henry's shoulders. Henry doesn't react. "Henry?"

"I need to go."

"No, you don't," Alex insists, taking a step forward. "Why do you think—"

"Enough!" he snaps, tossing the shirt he was holding on the bed. "You want to know why? Do you really?" He whirls around to face him, and his expression is harsh for one single second until he catches himself; something shatters in his eyes, crumbling. His edges soften in response. "I..." He clears his throat as if to gather his words. "I left you here with him.”

For one peaceful moment, he doesn’t understand what Henry means. "What?"

"The other day? He brought you here, and I didn't want to ask so I left. I left you with him."

Alex shortcircuits, and he speaks before his mind can process his own words. "You left a note."

"No, I didn't. He told me he'd say that if I left. You were unconscious and vulnerable and I left you here with a known villain."

Alex can just catch the glimpse of red-hot shame flurrying through Henry's face before he turns away from him, gathering the discarded clothes to shove them in the suitcase.

Shock spreads like numbness through Alex's body, except for his heart where a heavy weight presses on it, testing how pliable it can be. He tries to find his thoughts and his voice, and though that pressing feeling pushes against his lungs as well, he somehow forces a sentence out. "It's okay."

Henry flinches forward, almost slipping on the bed. " _ What _ ?" he chokes.

"It's okay. You were scared." Henry takes a breath, starting to protest but Alex doesn't give him the chance. "It was a supervillain, Henry. Of course, you got scared. I'm so sorry you were put in that position. No wonder you wanted to move out," he scoffs, without much humor.

Henry doesn't look at him. His shoulders hunch with the weight of the day, dragging him down until he finally lets himself sit down on the bed and rest his head in his hands. "It wasn't that."

_ Why didn't you ask about it?  _ Alex thinks and yet before he can voice it, he understands. Henry must know. He must have figured it out. The man has been living with him long enough for it to be absurd otherwise. The nightmares, the fear of fire, the fact that for the first few weeks until he complained about it, Alex kept smelling like smoke, or even the fact that they started bonding for real only after Henry made a show about superheroes in class. Henry  _ has  _ to know about him. And it didn't come from him.

"I didn't stop you from leaving because I didn't want to put you in that position again," he admits, pushing the suitcase aside so he can sit next to him. It's not as comfortable as when they're watching movies. There’s a tension between them, almost palpable, and it builds a wall that Alex is struggling to break through. "Because it might... Look, Mirage knows where I live somehow, and I thought... I thought I was protecting you."

Henry laughs, his voice pitched higher than it should. "From Mirage?"

"I know he's not exactly a stone-cold killer and all but... I don't know, Hen, it scared me when he was here and I didn't know where you were." 

And because he can't circle around the subject anymore, he adds: "You probably figured it out by now. Still, I need to say it. Henry, I'm—"

"Don't." 

Alex jolts when Henry grabs his knee, his fingers digging into his skin. His voice is clipped with pain and he still refuses to look at him. "Don't say it. Just... don't trust me with it, please."

"Why... why not?"

"Plausible deniability," he replies, his voice rough and cold and so, so tired, Alex feels the need to reach out to him. "Just please don't."

Alex nods, his mouth twisting in a grim line. He dares place a hand on Henry's shoulder and he shivers so violently, Alex pulls away. "Are you... still going to leave?"

"Yes. Tomorrow."

"Is there anything I can say to stop you from doing that?"

"No."

Alex swallows, nodding twice before pushing himself to his feet to go to his side of the room. He hesitates on the final step that would separate the two and throws one last look behind his shoulder. "We’ll talk in class though, right? You're not actually mad at me?"

Henry is quiet for three torturous seconds.

"If you'll have me."

Though he doesn't understand what he means by that, Alex knows he won't get anything more out of him tonight. He drifts back to his room, and as he lays in bed that night he tries not to think about the fact that soon enough he'll have a stranger at the other side.

His thoughts wander towards Mirage, to his stupid seventeen-year-old self that was once naive enough to admire him, and to himself now for trusting him even a little, only to have him invading his life again, this time stealing any sense of normalcy he had left. It doesn’t matter how kind Mirage tries to be. When it comes to Alex, that phantom of a man slips in like a thief and keeps snatching his life right under his feet. And though he had his reasons to agree with Kid in the first place, he can’t help but wonder if it’s really time to question Mirage’s alignment once and for all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wait, wait, before you leave!! If you want more Villains AU content, there are a couple of oneshots in this universe over at my winter prompts collection! So far we've had 'alleged arch-nemeses share a cup of hot chocolate' and 'local dumbass pretends to hero while sick'. Check them out!
> 
> Sorry this was a bit on the shorter side, but please leave a comment before you go! Thanks, y'all! Find me on tumblr @ saltfics !!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kinda short but I've had it like this for like 2 months and it doesn't seem likely I'll wrap it up soon, so, uh, enjoy and let's see if posting this will awaken anything in me. XD

Alex spent the past year complaining about every aspect of his life. And in the past week he’s been forced to realize how wrong he was. He wished to change his roommate from the moment Henry walked in the room and made a complete ass of himself, and now Alex wishes he would just talk to him in class. He has hated Mirage ever since he ended up with his own powers, declared a whole ass rivalry between the two, and now he misses the bastard, who has refused to show up at all. Even Kid has been getting restless at Mirage's disappearance; the guy was just getting excited about hunting down Alex's favorite villain.

Alex is annoyed and uneasy, and if he admits it to himself, a bit lonely. He didn't realize how much he relied on Henry's presence on the nights when he woke up from the nightmares, or the annoying sound of the news on his phone as his alarm.

So when he gets to his Ethics class that morning and finds Henry already sitting in his spot in the back, he makes a decision. He clambers up the stairs and before his ex-roommate has a chance to protest, he plops himself down next to him, slamming the textbook on the table.

Henry startles, jumping from where he's buried his face in an open notebook. His eyes shift from Alex to the desk and then back again. "What did the poor book ever do to you?"

"For one thing, I tried reading it."

"Ah."

Alex opens his mouth to continue but someone in the class somehow managed to come here more annoyed than he is.

"Okay, listen here, you little bitch—"

"Emma!'

"No, let her, she has a point."

"She didn't even make the point!"

"Well, she did call you a little bitch. That is _a_ point."

He turns to Henry, who also has his eyes narrowed at their classmates, though there's the barest tug on his lips.

"Do you have any idea what they're arguing about?" Alex asks.

The little amusement disappears from his face. "You didn't hear? Chief of Police released a statement about the superheroes again. He claims that apart from the usual villains like Mirage and Core and The Queen, the actual superhero teams are just as dangerous to the public and should not be supported. He vowed to actually bring them to justice himself, the bloody idiot."

"Your anger flatters me."

" _That's_ what you got from what I said?'

Alex scoffs, falling back on his chair. "So, Richards' a fucking idiot. We all knew that."

"It is not as simple as that, Alex," Henry insists, running a frustrated hand through his hair. "If he turns people against heroes, it can make their work a lot harder. A big part of the reason none of the supers have been stopped so far is because public opinion is largely in their favor. If Richards takes this away from y—from _them_ , and they are regarded as immoral as the villains, then nothing is going to stop them from arresting every single one of them for vigilantism."

He knows that Henry is right; this isn't something Alex hasn't thought of before. But he’s had more of a 'I'll burn that bridge when I get to it' approach to the subject. What else is he meant to do? Run a political campaign in favor of the superheroes? If he does that as Spitfire it would be ridiculous. If he does it as himself, he risks blowing his cover. All he can do is be the best version of his hero persona that he can be and hope that the people of his city will understand him.

"Well, I guess it comes back to what you said, right? Mirage and Spitfire are the same, it's all about perception."

"For _some_ people," Henry snaps, and it's so sudden Alex first thinks he misheard. It's only when he sees the shame, hot red on Henry's cheeks and all the way across his ears that he realizes he did indeed snap at him for a second there.

"Whoa, what?"

"Nothing."

"Henry—"

"Forget it."

Alex grabs Henry's arm, tugging until he gets his attention. He leans closer, keeping his voice quiet. "Hey. It's _me_ you're talking to. You _know_ what my stance about arresting Mirage is." Henry may have not let him admit the truth about his identity but there isn't a chance he doesn't actually know the truth. In the same way as some people must know why Spitfire lets Mirage go.

Henry's jaw tenses, sticking out in that stubborn manner of his. But it's how his fingers curl around the edge of the desk that stresses Alex out. "I thought I did."

"What does that mean?'

"Let it go. The professor is coming."

Alex tries to protest but he's right, and the professor dives straight into the lecture the moment she walks in. He spends most of the class with a nervous twitch on his leg until he notices Henry's annoyed exhale next to him and tries to tone it down. He might be shaking the entire row of desks and as irritated as he is with his ex-roommate, Alex doesn't want to be _that_ asshole.

But the moment the professor dismisses them, a whole torturous hour later, he grabs Henry's arm again before he can flee.

"You realize you can just call me by my name, don't you? There's no need for you to stretch all my shirts."

"Go to lunch with me."

"I'm sorry?"

"Don't apologize, just go to lunch with me." He shoves his books in his bag, following Henry down the steps of the lecture hall. "Look, when you moved out you promised we'd still hang out and you haven't spoken to me since. Come have lunch with me."

Henry is quiet for a moment, a tense silence that shapes the line of his posture. "I promised Pez."

"Bring him. The two of us. And Pez and June and Nora." He doesn't actually want to do that but if that's the only way Henry will get his head out of his ass and remember that they actually have fun together, he's willing to try. "It'll be fun."

"Isn't that exactly the meeting you wanted to avoid the other day, when you basically forced me to leave?"

"Can you stop being so sour for like half a second? Come on, man."

Henry stops walking, sighing deeply through his nose. "You're right. I apologize. This is not your fault." The smile he gives him barely takes form, but it washes away the animosity in his voice. "I have two more classes. Would you like to meet afterward?"

Alex grins despite himself. "Sounds good. Any place in particular you and Pez wanted to try?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

He pulls out the most convincing face he can manage, the most innocent, excited smiles to sell it. "Then let's go back to the pub. Have a do over."

Henry's bad mood must have dissipated, or he realized what an asshole he was being because he agrees, and they part ways to meet in a couple of hours. Alex texts June and Nora, and after they tease him for going so far to hang out with the guy he once hated, they agree to meet them there.

That's how he finds himself tapping incessantly against the plastic menu in a once again crowded pub even on a weekday lunch, after realizing what a bad idea that was. Except now he's already knee-deep in it. June and Pez are hitting it off next to him, while Henry has somehow ended up conspiring with Nora on the opposite side, talking with hushed voices to each other. Great.

He lets his eyes roam around the pub, wracking his brain for something to say to redirect the attention back to something more interesting. Like himself. And he does find something surprising but absolutely nothing he wants to bring attention to.

She catches his gaze, and because Portal has been a lot of things to him but discreet or merciful were not included, she approaches their table, a curious expression on her face.

Alex straightens in his spot, eyes wide as he waits to see what she will do.

"Hi..." Portal says, letting the greeting trail off since she still doesn't know his name. Clearly not for long. The rest of the table turns to her in various states of confusion. The girls know Portal only in her superhero clothes, so they don't recognize her at first, standing in front of them in a pair of jeans and a jacket. Her eyes are wide and, most importantly, uncovered, her dark brown hair loose on her shoulders.

What Alex doesn't expect is for Henry to reply first.

"Hello. Fancy meeting you here."

Alex gapes at them. "You two know each other?"

"We share a class," Portal says, her voice cautious, shifting her attention between the two of them. "How do you… how do you two know each other?"

He feels the beginnings of a headache coming on and he has to fight the urge to rub at his temples. "We used to be roommates."

"You're _fucking_ with me."

June startles at the sudden exclamation even as Nora hides a chuckle in a cough. Henry looks as uncomfortable as Alex feels.

"I'm sorry, how do you two know each other then?" Pez asks which earns him a glare from Henry he ignores.

Alex stammers out a nonsensical string of words that might have resembled a sentence in his head. His ability to lie disappeared somewhere around the time he realized his ex-roommate knew the real-life version of yet another superhero.

"In your own words, Alex," June huffs, looking at him with disbelief.

Portal's eyes light up. And _there_ it is. Alex. Fuck it.

"We share a _different_ class," Portal laughs and because she's a much nicer person than he sometimes gives her credit for, she offers a hand to June in greeting. "I'm Lisa."

Alex smiles at her and her understanding nod melts some of his defenses against her as an ally. "Hey, can we talk for a second?" he suggests.

"Sure thing. Excuse us for a moment, won't you?" she says as Alex slips from his seat. She leans down to leave a quick kiss on Henry's cheek before she goes. "Bye, Henry."

"Take care now,” he replies, a tight smile struggling to stick but his look is soft as he watches her leave.

Okay then. He didn't even know Henry _had_ friends other than Pez.

The two of them make their way out of the pub and, at her lead, sit down on the curb, knees bumping together as they huddle against the cold. Portal—or Lisa—turns to him, her brows raised in question, the most satisfied little smirk on her face.

"Alex Claremont-Diaz," he says offering a hand.

Her smile turns into a grin as she takes it. "Lisa Thomson."

He expected it to be uncomfortable, being so open with her. It was awkward when they first revealed their faces, and his name was a twice-locked secret, the last measure of safety they had against each other. But her smile is gentle if not a bit too smug, and as pleased as she is with her new discovery, it looks more like amusement than malice.

Or maybe Alex is too trusting. Time will tell.

"Hey, Alex?" she says, and it's so weird hearing his name in her voice. "Let's not share this with Kid, okay? He doesn't need to know."

"I couldn't agree more."

"Patrol tonight?"

"You got it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is confused about why we should care about Portal's name... you shouldn't. Unless you read everything I have posted. If you _want_ to see more of Lisa, please enjoy  volatile times .
> 
> I know this chapter was a bit of a mess (because it wasn't... supposed to stand like this... ) but I hope you enjoyed it at least a bit. Thanks for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there!  
> So I'm very hesitant to drop in with a new multichap but I did it anyway because I have no self-restraint. In case anyone knows/noticed it, the superpower origins are based on the Villains series by V.E.Schwab but that's about it for the similarities you'll see between the two. Oh, wait, there's one more. But that's for later.
> 
> And yes, the two superheroes in Alex's team are OCs, sorry. Yes, it's what you think probably.
> 
> Please let me know what you thought! Yay or nay?


End file.
